You’re running late to the bus stop. You check your clock every few strides — there’s still hope to make it. But after you turn a corner, you see that the sidewalk you’ve been sprinting takes a ridiculous curve instead of going straight to the street where you need to go. So what do you do? Cut the line through the grass.
You’ve just taken a ‘desire path,’ described by Robert Macfarlane as “paths & tracks made over time by the wishes & feet of walkers, especially those … that run contrary to design or planning”; he calls them “free-will ways.”
Robert Moor offers other terms, such as ‘cow paths,’ ‘pirate paths,’ ‘social trails,’ ‘kemonomichi (beast trails),’ ‘chemins de l’âne (donkey paths)’, and ‘Olifantenpad (elephant trails).’
JM Barrie described them as ‘Paths that have Made Themselves.’
Whichever word you decide to use, there’s a whole subreddit dedicated to these shortcuts, and it perfectly illustrates that urban developers aren’t always on top of their game. Or that people are just lazy. Or maybe it’s both!
#1 Next Level Desire Path
Image source: colfaxmachine
#2 Desire Path Created By A Squirrel We Feed Peanuts To Every Morning
Image source: CapeClaw
#3 Desirepath Regocnition In The Netherlands
Image source: r13z
#4 Understandable Desire Path
Image source: Isabellake1
#5 Never Heard Of This Before, But Figured I Had The Perfect One
Image source: Winter_Following1050
#6 Been Here 30 Years, I Don’t Think The Gate Has Ever Been Used
Image source: VonBlitzk
#7 Well Worn Wal-Mart Path. Deepest I’ve Ever Seen
Image source: Otherwise-Seaweed-76
#8 We Won !
Image source: _insomniack
#9 They’re Both Kind Of Appealing
Image source: kmaffett1
#10 Desire Steps?
Image source: Sachem81
#11 Miami U (Ohio) With The Awareness!!
Image source: miamiuniversity
#12 Update: Tree Is Budding + Secondary Path
Image source: mikeydhakid
#13 Desire Stairs
Image source: MastaBaba
#14 Beautiful Exemplar
Image source: hassenrueb
#15 “Please, Take This Circuitous Route Following The Perimeter” Signed, The Architects
Image source: reddit.com
#16 Ultimate Acceptance
Image source: sixtypizzas
#17 Three Years Ago, I Posted About A Desire Path On My Campus. We Are Successful!
Image source: PapaJamu
#18 Frosty Scotland
Image source: reddit.com
#19 Desire Path To Avoid A Branch Hanging Over Another Larger Desire Path
Image source: HamburgerEsquire
#20 The Fast Track To Fastrac
Image source: HardcoreMandolinist
#21 It’s Not Very Long But It’s Got Character
Image source: Schwanzus_Longus_69
#22 My Daughter Found The Shortest Way Home
Image source: NetworkHuge
#23 This His Is In Fact A Walkway, Thanks Though Lil’ Sign
Image source: skypineapple
#24 Useful Desire Path
Image source: elvivacious
#25 Long, Foggy, More Direct Desire Path At Ucsc
Image source: Tinktilo
#26 My University Gave Into Our Desire Path- In A Way That Created Another, Smaller Desire Path
Image source: mimsie43000
#27 One Side Preferred
Image source: StoryPenguin
#28 A Low-Tech Approach To Defeating A Desire Path
Image source: sunburntandblonde
#29 Desirepath? Gimme That Desirestreet!
Image source: 137353
#30 Absolute Behemoth Desired Path Next To The College In My Home Town
Image source: The-Imperator_
Follow Us
