Writer Bill Bryson came back to the US after 20 years in Great Britain and decided to reacquaint himself with his home country by walking the Appalachian Trail. And he took along a friend, or maybe a friend-ish, a cranky guy who was the only one who would come along, primarily because he had nothing else to do. In the grand tradition of other hiking sagas like Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
— but much funnier — he wrote A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail. Now it’s a movie with Robert Redford and Nick Nolte.