follow a beaten path

Larry followed a beaten path that led to a large community house.

It is perhaps easier, and certainly safer, to follow a beaten path, but it is also dull, uninteresting and futile."

In 1673 Marquette and Louis Jolliet left their canoes and followed a beaten path away from the river out onto the prairie to three Illinois villages within about a mile and a half of each other.

While we should not blindly follow a beaten path, we agree with the New Jersey Supreme Court's cogent observation: "When, in the course of a decade, 37 states call for the death penalty, the probability that the legislature of each state accurately reflects its community's standards approaches certainty."