I think college campuses are the most common place to find them.

My son and I use one weekly, when we scale the embankment of a bridge so we can walk over the bridge to get to the park. The embankment is very overgrown with weed trees, but a little path alongside the bridge has been worn out.

I recall a story I once heard about desire paths: A groundskeeper was constantly battling to keep students from wearing a track across a pad of grass on campus. He kept putting up signs saying "stay off the grass" etc., but the students kept cutting across and making a line. So he finally put up a sign that said "Please vary your path". Once the students started walking in various paths across the grass, instead of one, the track didn't appear.

It's a parable, of course, about not getting in a rut. Please vary your path.

That's a good story, lb.

There are lots of desire paths near beaches as well.

and in cruising areas, literally desire. London's Hampton Heath paths are practically desire-coded. Funny that sometimes going no where specific leads to something very specific.

and who is to say people in cars don't take their own 'desire paths'?

desire path sounds like a new term for pubic hair trimming? or desire patch maybe???