This is part of Reason's 2025 summer travel issue. Click here to read the rest of the issue.
Chris Arnade is a photojournalist and the author of the Substack newsletter Chris Arnade Walks the World. He spent a decade walking through American landscapes and documenting what he saw. Now he has expanded his project to include cities around the globe, whether they're large or small, and whether they're easily walkable or not. His newsletter documents his mileslong walks off the tourist-beaten paths, showcasing real people everywhere from the Faroe Islands to Albany, New York; from Phoenix to Nairobi, Kenya.
Arnade holds a Ph.D. in particle physics from Johns Hopkins University and spent years as a Wall Street bond trader. In 2011 he left finance to document the lives of lower-income Americans, a project that culminated in his 2019 book Dignity. Along the way, he developed what he calls the "McDonald's test"—the idea that people's attitudes toward the fast-food chain reveals their level of privilege.
