Walk the Wizard of Oz, the yellow brick road
A girl from Kansas, a road of yellow brick and three companions who each want something they already have. Your everyday steps take you down the road to the Emerald City, and Baum's words unlock along it.
- 100 miles
- 7 stops
- L. Frank Baum, 1900
Follow the yellow brick road
A road paved with yellow brick, and four travellers on it who each want the one thing they already have. Baum gives no distances and no map, so the hundred miles here is our estimate — but the road is exact, and it ends where you always knew it would.
Dorothy lands in Munchkin Country and sets out for the Emerald City on the road paved with yellow brick. She meets the Scarecrow in a cornfield, the Tin Woodman rusted in the forest and the Cowardly Lion in the wild wood. They cross the deadly poppy field together and come to the green gates, where everyone wears spectacles they can't take off.
Baum gives no distances and no map, so the hundred miles here are Bematist's estimate, walked on a map drawn by hand. It's one of the shortest journeys in the library, and one of the best to walk with someone else. The text is Baum's original novel of 1900, not the film, and it is odder and funnier than most people remember.
- Distance
- 100 miles (161 km)
- Stops
- 7, each with its own passage and plate
- Map
- Drawn by hand
- Text
- L. Frank Baum; Project Gutenberg ebook #55
Where it starts
There were several roads near by, but it did not take her long to find the one paved with yellow bricks. Within a short time she was walking briskly toward the Emerald City, her silver shoes tinkling merrily on the hard, yellow road-bed.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chapter III · L. Frank Baum
This is the passage Bematist gives you the moment you set out. The other 6 wait at the places they happened, and the only way to read them is to walk there.
How long would the yellow brick road take you?
At true scale on everyday walks, the road to the Emerald City takes about a month. Or pick your own finish and Bematist sets the pace from how much you already walk.
A rough guide, at about 0.75 m a step. In the app the pace comes from your own 30-day average in Apple Health, and stays fixed for the whole journey.
On the way
The words, at the places
7 passages, each waiting where it happened. You can see how far away the next one is, but not what it says.
Walk it with friends
Send a link and walk the same road together, each of you on your own streets, wherever you live.
No streak to lose
Steps come straight from Apple Health. A quiet day is just a short one, and your place on the road only moves forward.
More roads like this one
See the whole library, with a new book every month, chosen by walkers' vote.
Set out for the Emerald City.
100 miles of The Wizard of Oz, on the walks you already take.
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