Tim FerrissCraig Mod Returns — Epic Walks, The Art of Slowness, and More
At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Craig Mod on huge walks, boredom, publishing, and belonging
- Craig Mod and Tim Ferriss trace how Craig’s “Huge Walks” grew from late-night Tokyo wandering into multi-week solo walking-and-writing projects built around strict attention rules and repetition.
- Craig describes learning pilgrimage trails and high-level Japanese politeness through years of walking with John McBride, which shifted his focus toward deep local interactions.
- Craig explains how repeated publishing rejection led him to launch a membership model that funds his walks and writing, and how experiments like SMS-based updates created slower, more reflective feedback loops.
- Craig details how Kissa by Kissa and his Shopify-based “Craigstarter” revealed strong product-market fit at a deliberately sustainable scale, shaping his long-term strategy.
- Craig recounts how recommending Morioka to The New York Times triggered intense Japanese media attention and a surprising civic and economic ripple effect, alongside reflections on identity, adoption, and reconnecting with birth family.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasThe walks started as nighttime Tokyo immersion, not an athletic project.
Craig says his earliest “huge walks” impulse began as late-night wandering in Tokyo at 19–20, when he felt mesmerized by moving through the city safely and sensing everyday life through sound and smell behind doors.
A mentor and a first pilgrimage trip “activated” Craig’s walking life.
After meeting John McBride through a book project, Craig describes being introduced to pilgrimage trails like Kumano Kodo and being “instantly addicted,” especially after visiting Koyasan and experiencing the area’s lush nature and spiritual atmosphere.
Craig frames walking mastery as social and linguistic, not just logistical.
Craig emphasizes that what he learned from John was mostly interpersonal: he estimates “80% interaction, 20% routes,” highlighting John’s high-register politeness, curiosity, and ability to make locals feel deeply seen.
Disconnection and boredom are intentional design features of the walks.
Craig describes building walking “rules” to cultivate presence: no news, no social media, no podcasts or music, and deliberately cultivating boredom; he links this approach to insights from a 10-day Vipassana retreat and noticing “information withdrawal.”
Heavy pre-planning is how Craig buys freedom and presence on the road.
Craig explains he pre-books the entire route with a detailed spreadsheet to remove cognitive load, arguing that not thinking about where to sleep enables deeper attention to observation, conversation, photography, and nightly writing.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesStep one is just I arrived in Tokyo, I'm 19 years old, I'm walking through the city at night, and I'm just mesmerized.
— Craig Mod
The idea is to just be radically present and radically cultivate a boredom.
— Craig Mod
If there's any millimeter of friction, if there's one millisecond of friction in your life, you just pull that stupid thing out and start sucking at the teat of whatever information cow is in there, right?
— Craig Mod
Given the cards dealt to me of this day, there was no fuller version of this day.
— Craig Mod
This is the first time ever in my life that I understand where my brain comes from.
— Craig Mod
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
