Miles Howard
@milesperhoward
Outdoor author and urban trail builder. Creator of Mind The Moss, a newsletter about walking. Bylines in National Geographic, Mountain Gazette, The Boston Globe, Outside, WBUR, The New Republic, and AFAR. I founded the Walking City Trail of Boston. He/Him.
TONIGHT we hike to three of Boston's best brewpubs! Come join us at Forest Hills Station at 5 PM for a nice trek across "The Wilderness" of Franklin Park to the juncture of these three watering holes. (I'll be in the station by the fare gates with a sign.) bostontrails.org/worldcuphike
Boston: This Thursday evening, come join a spontaneous urban hike through “The Wilderness” of Franklin Park to some of the best brewpubs in Jamaica Plain! This Walking City Trails adventure was inspired by all the shared joy happening in Boston right now. bostontrails.org/worldcuphike
We are less than 72 hours out from the launch of the new trail that encircles the City of Boston, passing through forests, wetlands, beaches, hidden stairways, industrial territory, and much more. The trail goes live this Saturday morning, June 6th, and I can't wait to unveil it.
A rainy day like this one is perfect for assembling the website for a new urban trail; like the upcoming 80 + mile monster that's going to loop around the Boston perimeter and pass through every city and town that touches Boston. Only two more weeks until the new trail launches!
I spent Sunday morning mapping and photographing one of the 12 sections of the upcoming 80+ mile urban hiking trail around the City of Boston. This section runs through Chelsea and Revere, and the late spring scenery there was popping! Can't wait to unveil this giant on June 6th!
And finally, as you'll see in this sneak peek map of the new trail, it will pass through every city and town that touches Boston. The final, interactive map showing every twist and turn will be available on June 6th as part of the trail launch. The name will also be revealed then :)
Boston: What if I told you that all of these places could be seen and experienced on a singular walk around the city? In the most literal sense. A *major* escalation of the Walking City Trails is coming on June 6th. Watch this space for more teases and details.
Boston will never be a world class city as long as it treats arts and creativity like side projects, and not as elements that make a city economically and culturally vibrant. These cuts from the mayor’s office are demoralizing because they’re a reflection of a preexisting and short sighted mindset.
When you're not dealing with glaze ice or mounds of snow on the sidewalk, winter really is one of the best seasons for taking an urban hike across Boston. About 30 of us enjoyed Boston's Harborwalk, Bunker Hill and the hidden gems beneath I-93 this week. And the next hike is right around the corner.
Amidst...everything...Boston Night Hikes continue. On Monday evening this week, over 40 people turned out for a climb to one of the city's greatest high points.
Boston Night Hikes have officially gone beyond Boston. Last night, a group of us explored the woods and hills of Pine Banks Park in Malden. Join us for the next one by signing up for the Walking City Trails newsletter! walkingcitytrail.substack.com
One Battle After Another is as great as people are saying it is, but Benicio Del Toro may have stolen the whole film with this one moment/line that will live rent free in my head indefinitely
Brief reprieve from the world being on fire. A new book project adventure has begun and this one is for the hardcore New England freaks. Coming in 2027.
Anyone who is engaged in housing discourse and advocacy should read THERE IS NO PLACE FOR US by @brian-goldstone.bsky.social. No book that I’ve read in recent years has faced the forces driving our homelessness and affordability crisis like this one. It’s an astounding feat of reporting.
For no particular reason, I re-watched THE THIN RED LINE last night, for the first time in almost a decade. It's hard to think of another movie from the 90s that's aged this beautifully. And sadly, I think it would be impossible to make this kind of film today. A tragic and transcendant masterpiece.
48 hours of thru-hiking on Chicago’s Outerbelt Trail. A beautiful and unique urban hiking experience. We meandered along hidden creeks, saw wildlife, and combined camping with thin-crust pizza (the pope’s favorite!) and other delicacies. Editors. Interested in a story about this? Let’s talk.
Heading to Millennium Station to catch a train to Calumet, where I’ll meet up with the trail builders behind Chicago’s Outerbelt, hit the trail, and spend the night camping at a nature preserve. It’s a steamy one today. Stops at air-conditioned venues near the trail are likely.
New urban trails are popping up in more U.S. cities each year, and some of them are massive. But what’s rare is an urban trail that offers access to campsites: allowing you to thru-hike an urban trail. This week, I’m in Chicago to hike and camp on the Outerbelt Trail!
This is a Hall of Fame reader comment on a very reactionary op-ed about Zohran Mamdani's victory that was published in my local paper today.
Currently training for a long distance hiking event in a high heat area and I decided to do a Walking City Trail sign audit. Thus far, each section has been about 50/50 in terms of trail signs removed and trail signs left alone. Suffice it to say, I brought replacements. One last part to go tonight.
Greater Boston: I’ll be at Aeronaut Brewing in Somerville on Wednesday evening at 6pm to lead an IPA-fueled conversation about urban trails, wayfinding, and the role of “Citizen Geography” in modern life. Come on out and join us!
I went for a hike with Bernie Sanders this morning in Morristown, VT. As we’ve seen on Boston’s Walking City Trails, group hikes are a uniquely effective way to get people talking, connecting, and putting down community roots; which is vitally important in times like these (and in all times, really)
As if he wasn’t doing enough good already, Zohran might usher in a truce for the extremely online housing discourse
Of all the magazine stories I’ve written in the last few years, this one might be the biggest and closest to my heart. For Mountain Gazette, I went for a long summer trek along private beaches in Cape Cod; a tiny sliver of Massachusetts’ privatized coastline. Which we should reopen to the public.
The left has not “dictated” culture; the left has created culture that’s more attractive to more people, in a landscape where there’s a seemingly endless stream of funding for right wing culture propagation, and dwindling resources for left-adjacent ventures. That, in itself, is a show of strength.