I read this in college and it went completely over my head; picked it up on a whim (actually, after watching Shogun and seeing I had exactly one Japanese book on my shelf) and was struck immediately with wanderlust and the desire to look very closely at plants. I even tried to write a few haikus; please don't ask to see them.

Looking at the map of Basho's travel in the book, and then looking at a map on google maps, I was struck by how little he actually traveled and how big the book makes it feel. One take would be that you really have to go far these days to feel like you're exploring in the way Basho was. But in the slightly mystic afterglow of reading something like this (ideally with a few poems committed to memory), even walking around your closest park or a neighborhood you haven't visited in a while feels like some kind of experience, feels somehow totally new.