i grew up horse packing in the wilderness areas of Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah, but we used horses, not donkeys, and of course rode our saddle horses and led the pack horses. Less someone think this is the "easy way," horses require a lot of time-consuming care. On occasion I walked more daily mileage than I rode, when the horses wandered off at night.

France's "Chemin de Stevenson" follows the path taken by British author Robert Louis Stevenson (of Treasure Island fame) and his donkey Modestine through the Cevennes mountains, now the GR70. His amusing book, Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, is now a classic. I hiked a small portion of the route in the summer of 2001, across the summit of Mont Lozere, the high point, and several other short sections. It is possible to rent a donkey for the trip, and I met a hiker who had done so, but having a donkey with you really limits the places you can camp or stay along the route, and also subjects you to being the subject of numerous photographers!

The Cevennes are beautiful and relatively uncrowded--at least when I was there, only the French seemed to visit there. This relative lack of foreign tourists also requires the traveler or hiker to have some knowledge of French. Fortunately, I was fairly fluent; my main faux pas (immediately corrected by the store clerk) was using the wrong gender for "peach." The only guidebook I could find was in French (it worked for me), and even an online search today comes up with the top sources (except wikipedia) in French.