Journeying: Bangkok to Barcelona on Foot

Bangkok Barcelona a peu

The borders between urban areas and nature are fading. New cities are expanding into rural areas, and urban dwellers long for more green spaces.

The journey is complete: 3+ years and 14,000+ kilometers. To see the latest posts from the journey, scroll to the bottom of this page.
But who really has access to nature in growing urban areas? How is nature being integrated into megacity plans? How are cities in emerging countries and developed nations making themselves more livable, resilient and sustainable? What are cities throughout Asia and Europe doing to improve equity and inclusion among their residents? How are cities creating opportunities for their citizens and incorporating social justice while also balancing environmental needs and natural resources capacity?

We hope to find out, and see for ourselves.

We are Jenn and Lluís, and in January 2016, we will start walking from Bangkok, Thailand, back home to Barcelona, Catalonia. Along the way, we’ll explore the idea of just cities, occasionally posting our perspectives, photos and podcasts of what we find in different corners of the world here on The Nature of Cities.

We’ll be walking in towns, cities and rural, far-from-anything stretches. We’ll stroll through parks, alongside rice paddies, up mountains, across deserts and into the chaotic bustle of city centers. Our feet will touch sidewalks, train tracks, riverbeds, paved roads and dirt paths. We think walking this distance—an estimated 14,000 kilometers—will create both an intimate and expansive view of our world while also compelling a deeply introspective look at how we interact with our planet and the people who call it home.

Our planned trek will take us through about 20 countries, starting in Southeast Asia and finishing on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. It won’t always be a straight line, but it will be a route that will surely change our lives and, hopefully, touch the lives of others we meet along the way. We’ll share here what we see, hear, feel and experience along the way.

We hope you’ll follow our footsteps. You will find our series on The Nature of Cities here. For additional information about our journey, please visit http://bangkokbarcelonaonfoot.com.

Jenn and Lluís

And, Now What? Exploring what happens after a 16,000-kilometer walk across two continents
Jennifer Baljko,  Barcelona

Those last few days in June, we could see Barcelona’s shape in the distance. The three chimneys from the old power plant. The slanted roof of the Forum. The towers from the Olympic village. The long stretch of beach reaching to the glass sail that is the W hotel. The...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

Oh, For the Love of Bicycles! A Walking Reflection about Moving on Two Wheels through Urban and Rural Areas
Jennifer Baljko,  Barcelona

Walking may be my main form of transportation these days, but I often daydream about wheels…bicycle wheels…and the way they move people through urban and rural spaces. Most of our 14,000-kilometer journey to date is speckled with memories of two-wheeled riders, and my longing to join them in their pedaling...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

Closer to Home, Higher the Walls
Jennifer Baljko,  Barcelona

We noticed an extraordinary thing walking across Asia and Europe since January 2016: the absence and presence of fences. It may not be extraordinary in the “I climbed Everest” kind of way. But, for us, it’s extraordinary in the “I walk slow enough to see how fences change” kind of...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

Signs of Depressed Urban Economies
Jennifer Baljko,  Barcelona

It has been raining all afternoon in Megali Sterna, a village in the north of Greece, and, from the empty and closed café we have been sitting in for  hours, it looks like the rain will continue into the evening. We scan the neighborhood for a dry place to pitch...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

Farmers From the City
Jennifer Baljko,  Barcelona

It’s a hot June day in rural Greece. We stop in a run-down gas station on a small secondary road cutting through wheat fields on both sides. We wipe the sweat from our brows. The gas station attendant opens the refrigerator and pulls out a crate of cherries.  “Take what...

1 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

A Walk Between Two Seas
Jennifer Baljko,  Barcelona

I sit at a picnic table in a sliver of a park running alongside Istanbul Caddesi (street), not far from the Küçükçekmece Gölü, a natural lagoon on the Marmara Sea. It’s about noon on a Wednesday and, except for two ladies chatting on a bench a few meters away, I...

1 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

Westward Wandering and Wondering
Jennifer Baljko,  Barcelona

Thinking of home turf as we start a new phase of the Bangkok-Barcelona journey My mind always wanders forward. Even as my footsteps ground me in the present, I can’t help but wonder what lies ahead. We’re still technically in Asia, on the side of the line that divides Turkey...

2 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

Photo Essay: Finding Refuge in City Parks
Jennifer Baljko,  Barcelona

We walked many treeless roads from Bangkok, Thailand to Samsun, Turkey. On our weekly rest days, when we rambled into cities and found a hotel room where we could sleep in a bed and hang our laundry, we sought out those quiet giants. This walk we’re on is shifting our...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

Conquering the Sea: Expanding Turkey’s Black Sea coast with stones, apartments, and promenades
Jennifer Baljko,  Barcelona

There’s another one. And another one. And another one. And, yes, there’s one more over there…and over there. I’m noticing the many new apartment buildings dotting—defining—Turkey’s Black Sea coastline. From Hopa to Samsun, and nearly all of the cities and towns in between the 500-kilometer stretch we have done so...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

Reflecting on Two Years Walking in Asia
Jennifer Baljko,  Barcelona

My eyes fall on the big tree in the far side of the courtyard. It casts a spell on me. Its leafless branches twist toward the sky, claiming a beauty few notice. I notice, and stop mid-step to admire this natural wonder. I take a picture of it so I...

2 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

City Living from Baku to Batumi
Jennifer Baljko,  Barcelona

Walking gives us a slow and intimate way to notice the subtle similarities and differences between cities. We consciously and sub-consciously collect details and compare cities as we slowly make our way from Point A to Point B by foot. We have even created a mental game to pass the...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

The Human Disconnect in Trash Management
Jennifer Baljko,  Barcelona

We walk through Mashhad, Iran, and start giggling like children. “Look how clean everything is! There are trash bins, and parks with good exercise equipment, and wide sidewalks you can actually walk on without being sideswiped by motos, rickshaws, bicycles and cows! Oh, how nice… they painted the park benches!...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

Wall Watching in Iran
Jennifer Baljko,  Barcelona

We walked approximately 1,500 kilometers in Iran, and something was noticeably missing: Graffiti. Scribbled names or tags, spray painted symbols, and thought-provoking political commentary were absent in cities, towns and villages from Sarakhs on the Turkmenistan border to Astara on the Azerbaijan border to the sprawling capital of Tehran to...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

What South Asian Cities Seem to be Missing
Jennifer Baljko,  Barcelona

I slump into the sofa of the hotel lobby. It’s been another exhausting day walking through India. We squeezed ourselves through narrow alleyways where bicycle carts, cows, and mopeds also wrestle to move a few feet forward. We sidestepped the foil cookie wrappers, paper tea cups, plastic flour bags, and...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

Managing Informal Markets and Limiting Citizen Marginalization
Jennifer Baljko,  Barcelona

Street vendors. Market peddlers. Musicians walking through subway cars. Parking spot guards and car watchers. Van drivers with handmade signs competing for passengers. Hawkers who sell stuff out of the trunks of their cars, out of baby carriages, and from bicycle carts. Hagglers looking to pocket some cash along the...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

Bishkek: Building on Old Bones
Jennifer Baljko,  Barcelona

I have an affection for cities in transition. I like when I visit a city for the first time and get an immediate sense that things are changing, that there is a blurring between what’s old and what’s new. Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan was one of those cities. When I first arrived...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

Dhaka’s Struggle with Traffic and Livability
Jennifer Baljko,  Barcelona

Ding, ding, ding. Ding, ding, ding. Honk, honk. Hoooonk. Honk, honk. Toot, toot, toot, ding, ding, ding. Honk, honk, honk. This is the sound of Dhaka. All. Day. Long. There are only a few hours before dawn when there is quieter hum of traffic. But for the rest of the...

1 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

Closing the Gap Between Girls’ Education and Women in the Workforce
Jennifer Baljko,  Barcelona

Nilofar* leans over to pour us more tea. All conversations in Central Asia seem to start with tea. She is asking questions about our trip, wondering why we are walking from Bangkok to Barcelona. She wants to know if we have always traveled, how we can afford the trip, if...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

The Promise of the Big City: Migrants and Refugees Will Come to Your City. It’s Not a Novel Idea, but Cities Act Like it Is
Jennifer Baljko,  Barcelona

“My husband is in Moscow.” “My son and his wife moved to Moscow a few years ago.” “My brother and sister work in Moscow.” “I want to go to Moscow. I can find a job there, and make more money than here.” We heard all sorts of versions of this...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

Establishing New Models of Human Rights: Creating Clean Places to Live
Jennifer Baljko,  Barcelona

A Burmese man surprises me with a question, an idea that will make my thoughts race for weeks. “They talk about human rights abuses and political prisoners and all of these things. Yes, these things are important,” the man says, referring to the collective, unknown “they” who create the rules...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

Footsteps Through Thailand’s Cities and Rural Areas
Jennifer Baljko,  Barcelona

“Thailand is what you make it.” That’s what an ex-pat Westerner who relocated here a few years ago told us when we were strolling through Nakhon Sawan, a busy city in the country’s central/lower north region. This seems true in many regards, or at least from the on-the-ground impressions we...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

Setting Out from Bangkok. TNOC Podcast Bangkok to Barcelona 01
Jennifer Baljko,  Barcelona

Also available at iTunes. Story notes: I am Jenn Baljko, and my partner Lluís and I started walking from Bangkok, Thailand, back home to Barcelona, Catalonia. Along the 12,000km journey, we’ll explore the idea of just and green cities, occasionally posting our perspectives here on The Nature of Cities—photos, podcasts, and essays on what we...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

Where Walking and Just Cities Meet
Jennifer Baljko,  Barcelona

“We live in a fast-paced society. Walking slows us down.” — Robert Sweetgall, walking guru and president of Creative Walking Inc. Walking. It’s a natural, human thing to do. Whether we wander through wide open green spaces or ramble around in cities, the simple act of putting one foot in front of...

2 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation