I like to walk.

Every city I have ever visited, I explored on foot — Mumbai, with its intoxicating blend of fragrance, color, and ceaseless energy, memories of marigold garlands and freshly cut pineapple; Sydney, meandering along the Parramatta River, past the Harbour Bridge and the sail-winged Opera House; Rio de Janeiro, tracing the curves of Copacabana, Ipanema, and Botafogo, with the favelas climbing the hills above; Lima, where churches seem to stand on every corner — and countless other cities scattered across the world beyond.

So now, five years after leaving the sprawling immensity of Los Angeles for a village of 433 inhabitants on the Northern California coast, I seize every opportunity to make the journey between home and Mendocino on foot — five miles, eight kilometers — and it is never once a dull walk.

I always return with dozens of photographs; last week’s walk alone added some 250 new images to my collection. The nature here is extraordinary: the scintillating ocean with its ever-changing patches of color, the river estuaries that reshape themselves every few days, the deep green woods and rolling hills, the grass swaying in the breeze, the rhododendrons now in full and glorious bloom — a spectacle that will last another couple of weeks — the wildflowers scattered along the path, and the clouds drifting endlessly overhead.