When you want a shortcut, whether when going from the bus stop to the office or stopping by the corner shop, but the path designated for you seems way longer, you pick an unbeaten path instead. You soon realize that many others before you have already done that by traces it left in the grass. 

Robert Macfarlane describes desire paths as “paths and tracks made over time by the wishes & feet of walkers, especially those paths that run contrary to design or planning”; he calls them “free-will ways”. JM Barrie described them as “Paths that have Made Themselves”. There’s something both fascinating and somewhat mysterious about them, so no wonder there are countless Reddit threads and communities dedicated to them.

To find out more about this mesmerizing community on Reddit named “Desire Paths”, Bored Panda reached out to its moderator C.M. Gillespie, who happily shared some insights. “When I originally joined the subreddit, it was about 3000 subscribers deep. I’d seen someone mention it in a comment section, likely on a post of a desire path on /r/pics or a mention in /r/AskReddit of these paths being paved following natural foot traffic on a college campus,” the mod explained.

They also recounted: “A user named SecularScience created the subreddit after someone posted a picture of a desire path on another subreddit, probably /r/pics, and a commenter noted that they have a name! It emerged out of curiosity.”

According to the moderator of the Desire Paths subreddit, to this day, word of mouth continues to be how the community finds each other. “When someone unknowingly posts a picture of a desire path, people tag the subreddit and the community grows.”

Gillespie told us that desire paths are so fun to spot. “Once people know they have a name, they start seeing them all over the place. It’s a ‘once you see, you can’t unsee’ scenario.”

According to the Redditor, “If you haven’t noticed a desire path before, look for worn-down grass made by people who step off the sidewalk and decide to take the shortcut instead. They’re not the designated, paved paths. They’re paths that are trod on the grass in between.”

Interestingly, in Dutch, they’re called “elephant paths” by some people, though Gillespie said they are not sure if that term is commonly used. “I think the translation is Olifantenpaadje. Someone on the subreddit said they’re called Trampelpfad in German.”

Andrew Furman, a professor in interior design and architecture at Ryerson University in Toronto, has been researching desire paths for years. According to him, they tell us something about “the endless human desire to have a choice. The importance of not having someone prescribe your path”. 

“An individual can really write their own story. It’s something really powerful if you do have that agency to move,” Furman argues. Desire paths allow us to “not follow the script,” something that can be interpreted as a form of resistance. This is because in a heavily constructed city, there are “rules as to how public and public-private spaces are used”, Furman believes.