"It All Began Because of Pigeons": An Interview with Chris Arnade

On being a relentless explorer, appreciating the mundane, and walking around the world!

Today I am so excited to share an interview with Chris Arnade! He writes a fascinating Substack, called Chris Arnade Walks the World. For those wondering what that means — He never stays in the touristy parts of town, and he doesn’t use cabs or cars. When he travels, he only walks and uses public transportation, and stays at the lowest cost motels he can find. He’s walked over fifty global cities, and almost thirty countries.

Before working as a writer, he got his PhD in physics from Johns Hopkins University and then was a trader on Wall Street before leaving in 2012 to document addiction in the Bronx. His time in the Bronx resulted in a book, called “Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America,” which is a collection of photo essays and interviews with people he met during that time. We discuss walking everywhere, lessons learned from traveling, finding the “perfect place,” and surprisingly, pigeons. Enjoy!

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What made you start your newsletter, Chris Arnade Walks the World?

When Covid began, I realized I’d let myself get out of shape, and began doing a daily walk, which became a daily ten mile walk, which reminded my how much I enjoyed walking, both for the exercise and for the three hours of meditation. 

I started walking in nearby cities, then beyond. I was collecting the thoughts from the walks into small pieces I posted mostly on Twitter, but became frustrated by the limitations, and nastiness, of that platform. So, on a lark, I switched to Substack, not exactly sure what direction my newsletter would go. 

One of the first pieces I wrote was on why I walked. 

How would you describe yourself in three words?

A friend came up with the best description of me, as “someone who likes to be in places I shouldn’t be.”  So, if I try to boil that down to three or less words, maybe “inappropriately curious”? 

Where are you currently traveling?

I’m home right now, in upstate NY, on a three week rest. Prior to this, I did one of my cross country walks, spending three weeks walking from Amsterdam to Brussels. This weekend I leave for Buenos Aires, where I will be for a little over two weeks, before coming home for a two week break. 

I travel in that pattern, two to four weeks on a trip, followed by two to three weeks home. 

When did you start traveling?

My parents were relentless explorers. I’m the youngest of seven kids, and the entire family would go on these months-long trips, sometimes living in different places for a year. I was born in Spain, on one of those trips. My first memories come from our year living in Nigeria.

How did your photo essay and writing career begin?

My photo essay and writing career didn’t begin until I left my banking job, over ten years ago, and it began because of pigeons! 

On walks I noticed what looked like choreographed flocks of pigeons over the roofs. My curiosity eventually brought me up onto those roof tops, where I met the people who kept the pigeons. That eventually became a photo series I called Pigeon Keepers of NYC. 

What was the moment where it really took off? 

The quest to find pigeons eventually brought me to the Hunts Point neighborhood of the Bronx, where I shifted to writing about poverty, addiction, and homelessness, spending over three years documenting a street family of roughly fifty people. 

That project soon broadened beyond Hunts Point, into similar communities all across the US. It took place during the run up to the 2016 election, and my comments on that, and the possibility Trump could win brought a larger following. 

But no piece did more for my current career than the article I wrote on McDonalds as community centers. I became known as the McDonalds guy! I almost didn’t publish it, because I thought nobody would read it because it was so obvious.

What caused this shift in your life from working as a trader on Wall Street to being a photojournalist in the Bronx?

I would say overall, a combination of curiosity and boredom. I get into a new career when I feel I’ve learned all I think I can from the old one, although each pivot is slightly different than that. I left physics because I came to realize I wasn’t dedicated to it enough to be able to forge a successful and enjoyable career in it. 

I didn’t know much about baking, beyond that it was becoming more analytical. It was a new and interesting challenge, one grounded in a very tangible reality, that paid well. After six years of theoretical physics, it sounded like a nice change. 

I enjoyed banking for the first ten years, but then I had to remove myself from it because I was turning sour, which wasn’t fair to anyone, including my colleagues, family, and friends. 

To deal with that, I started walking more and more, without any goal. That meant walking to areas where someone like myself wasn’t expected to walk. Places a lot of people lived, but few visited. Which led to my next career as a photographer/writer!

And eventually your book, "Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America." What did you learn from that experience? 

Those six or so years, in the Bronx, and then beyond the Bronx, were easily the most productive time of my life, at least in how much I learned and changed. 

The biggest lesson was realizing everyone needs a purpose in life, that transcends the here and now, and that comes with a community. We are social animals, that want meaning, and want that meaning to be greater than our mortal selves.

If I had to boil that down to one bumper sticker, it would be, “Everyone wants to feel a valued member of something larger than themselves.”

I changed during those years.  The joke I make is when I first walked into Hunts Point I was an agnostic vegetarian, and now I’m a Big Mac eating church goer! At a personal level, the biggest impact of writing Dignity was a deep appreciation of faith, both in others, and in myself. 

How many countries have you walked through? 

Since I started this Substack, maybe approaching thirty now? 

What has been your longest journey in a single day?

I have two basic types of trips. One where I go to a city, and stay in the same place for the entire trip, and do my best to walk as much of it as possible. The other trip is a long walk, from one part of the country to another, resting in a new place each night, and carrying all I need in a small book-bag. 

The longest day was in Japan, and it was close to thirty miles. It took me from 4:30 a.m, to 6 p.m.. As far as being in transit, the worst trip took about fifty hours, from check in at the airport to finally being in a proper bed. I’ll never do that again.

What is the biggest lesson you've learned this month in your current travels?

I don’t know if it’s a lesson, as much as a growing realization, that there’s no perfect place. I think a lot of the travel industry tends to give people the impression there’s a fantasy land to be found, and if only you travel enough, you will find it. The city, or beach, or country that fits your needs so well, that you will find true contentment, or your true self, whatever that is. 

Yet, you can’t escape, no matter how much you might try, the drudgery, ordinariness, and messiness, of life. Every place comes with some frustrations or ugliness.

I don’t think that’s a bad thing, because I’m not sure I want to escape from all of those things, which are a central part of being alive. Or to put it another way, I’ve learned to appreciate the mundane. 

Where did your passion for walking come from? 

I’ve always liked to explore, and walking is the best way to do that. It allows you to see things at the most granular. It also forces you to see the entire movie. You can’t fast forward through anything, like you do with a car or bike. 

You also talk about how walkability doesn’t always mean livability. So, what makes a city the most livable?

My favorite cities (Istanbul, Seoul, Hanoi, Bucharest, El Paso) have an ordered dis-order. They are both safe, yet a little chaotic. They have the right mix of letting human flourish by not imposing too many rules, but also self imposed thoughtful behavior. 

I’ve written about societies being either high-trust or low-trust, and high-regulation and low-regulation, and those in the high-trust, low-regulation quadrant end up being my favorite. I also think, in broad strokes, those end up being the most livable. 

What has been the most walkable city you've visited? Least walkable? 

Most walkable is probably Tokyo and Seoul, and the least is Dakar, and that was due mostly to the heat, rather than traffic.  

A lot of American cities have come close to reaching Dakars level, but for different reasons. Like Orlando, Phoenix, which are too spread out, and too car-centered to walk without a lot of danger and difficulty. 

I don’t mind the least walkable places, because I learn more from them than the highly walkable places, but I need to space them apart, for my sanity, health, and overall spirits. . 

What is one of the strangest things that have happened to you while traveling?

The first that comes to mind is when I was in Tokyo, the night before I began a walk across Japan. I was in an Izakaya I’d found entirely by accident. 

I might be the first American tourist to have gone inside in at least a decade.  It isn’t a special place, not by culinary standards. An old neighborhood place that’s been there for over thirty years. The owner was so happy to have me, and he ended up so drunk, that he gave me lots of presents, including this large stuffed animal (the puffy white character from Ghostbusters).  

I had no idea what to do with it., but I couldn’t throw it away because it was a present, and gifted to me with such joy. The problem is though, when I do these long walks I calculate down to the last sock what to bring, since I have only so much space in my small backpack. 

For some reason, probably due to me also being drunk, I committed to taking it along for the entire two hundred mile walk. Promised to send him pictures along the way. 

Which is how I found myself five days later walking across an otherwise empty rice field, with this three foot stuffed Ghostbusters-thing attached to the outside of my backpack. 

The stuffed present spent the whole trip with me, and three weeks later, when I was back in Tokyo to leave, I gave it back to him, with a bunch of pictures of it all over Japan. I’ve been back to the Izakya three more times, on different trips, where I always spot the stuffie, and we joke about it, both of us in languages the other doesn’t understand, but does understand. I guess I could now call him a friend, and in that Izakaya I’ve got honorary regular status.

Do you have a favorite place you’ve been, or definitely would return to?

I wish I could return to every place I’ve been, even Phoenix. I always develop a fondness for something, or someone, in anyplace I walk, although sometimes what that is can be pretty quixotic.  I don’t think I could do what I do, unless I had that attribute. 

Yet Istanbul, Mongolia, Korea, England, and Japan are the ones I'll probably return to the most, either because I think there’s a lot more to learn from them (Mongolia, Istanbul), or because they’re such pleasant places to walk (Japan, England, and Istanbul again).

Where are you off to next?

My next three booked trips are Buenos Aires, then walking from Nîmes to Lyon (about 180 miles), then Kampala Uganda. After that, it’s all up in the air, as it usually is. 

What have been some Tiny Joys lately?

I have a small pond in my yard that has two snapping-turtles in it. When I moved here eight years ago, I started to feed them hot dogs. That progressed to them coming up onto the shore, when they saw or heard me approach near sunset, and taking food from my hand. 

I’ve since named them Reginald and No-Name, and it’s evolved into a daily feeding during spring and summer.

I’m always amazed each year when it begins again, when these dinosaur like animals after seven months buried under the mud, beneath the ice, stick their little heads out, see me, and then climb up onto the shore. 

Seeing them always makes me smile. It’s a nice little constant in my life, which is especially pleasing given how much I’m on the road. 

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What cities do you consider to be the most walkable? The most livable? Maybe both? Is this is a factor when considering where to visit or live? Comment below!