fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2638 ]

[ SECRET POST #2638 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2638 ⌋

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

What do you consider to be "walking distance", F!S? Do you base it on time, distance, dangers on the route (bad area, busy road), other factors, or a combination of factors?

How do you judge the factors you use, especially for somewhere you've not been before?

Personally I think about half an hour is acceptable, at my fitness level. I use google maps to decide. I put in my start point and destination and switch to walking directions. And remember that it's probably based on someone fitter than me, who walks faster... and doesn't get distracted by every four-legged furry thing that comes in range to get a fuss.

Walking distance is however the fuck long I have to walk to get to where I am going if there is no public transport. That is my only consideration when it comes to getting to places, if I am physically unable to walk that far or it is just not possible to do in a timely manner I will either rely on someone picking me up at some point along the way or not being able to go.

For example: At my last job I walked for almost an hour to get to work each way, which was from one side of town to the other...

5-7 mile radius of my current location.

Depends what I'm walking to. I walk twenty minutes to and from college and I wouldn't want to live much further away because it's an every day journey, but I take the same route when I go to the sea, which is an extra half an hour away and I don't mind that walk because I go less frequently. And a while ago I walked an hour to watch an art film every day for two weeks through a busy urban area, sometimes in the middle of the night. And it wasn't a horrible journey.

Re: Walking distance

(Anonymous) - 2014-03-25 00:17 (UTC) - Expand

I'm physically disabled and live in hilly suburbs, so walking distance isn't very far for me :( When I travel in flatter places I can walk a lot farther than at home, but it's tricky determining what my turnaround point will be. I like walking in cities best and will walk everywhere because there is always someplace I can sit down for a minute if I need to and I can use public transport if I have to do that.

Depends on the weather and how safe/walkable the area is. My view also used to be longer before I owned a car. When I lived in Boston, it wasn't unusual for me to walk 1-3 miles to get somewhere I wanted to be, even if public transit was an option (which it usually was - Boston is awesome that way, but I was a college student and too cheap/poor to fork over 85 cents for T fare if I didn't have to). I moved back to the Midwestern US and got a car and my typical "walking distance" shrank to only about half a mile! I have, on occasion, walked as far as six miles home from work on days I didn't have my car simply because I was too impatient to wait for a bus and the weather was nice.

Anything that's about a half hour or less. Maybe more depending on my mood/energy level.

Depends on how much free time I have. During the summer, I walked EVERYWHERE if it was about an hour away on foot. So I'd say an hour is my limit when it's not schooltime and I'm less tired. Other than that, probably 30 minutes.

If I have the time, it's within walking distance. I have asthma and I'm not very fit so I might take longer than other people to rest and get my breath back, but I can walk all day. I've always dreamed of taking a long walk from the city to the country with a dog.

It depends on a number of factors.

1) How much time do I have? Weekends with nothing planned, walking an hour or more is totally reasonable. After a long day of work, walking more than 20 minutes to grab something for dinner is unacceptable.

2) Intervening terrain. Where I live, going in three directions leads through shopping/residential areas until you hit the beach, bay, or hills. The other direction hits a freeway, which I'm really unwilling to cross on foot. (This is also the main reason I won't even consider biking to work, even though it's only 7 miles. 3 freeway crossings = nope! And at least one cyclist has been killed by a car on the same route in the last couple years.)

I'm in SoCal, so weather is rarely an issue. In other places, if it's cold enough I want a thick jacket, walking distance shortens dramatically.

Totally depends on dangers/traffic.

Half an hour is pushing it for me; I wish I exercised more. 20 min. is doable, but if it's not a safe route, I'll try to find another alternative. I used to walk to high school and back which took about 15 min. each way, carrying my backpack with books and my horn. I think it was about a half-mile distance. It didn't cross any roads, though, since my neighborhood directly abuts the school's campus.

30-40 minutes if there's no public transit to help me get back if I need it. If there is, then I'll sometimes walk an hour just to get to one place.

This is in the city. Walking distance is much, much less if I'm in a suburban, big box store hell.

For me walking distance is a 10-20 min walk with paths. I've been really inactive recently and the most I do is treks across parts of campus which are only 15 min at the most, because if it's any father I can take the campus bus.

Like, to my apartment office (about a mile). I don't walk anywhere else because it's dangerous and there are no sidewalks. (I hike, but I drive to a park to do that so that's different.)

If I'm walking around where I live, it depends on the direction. During the summer, when it's light for a long time, I sometimes do four miles to work, work five to eight hours, and then turn around and walk home. It's gently hilly for part of the way, but there's no major thoroughfares to cross. Like the OP, I have to factor in "critter fuss time." Also flower smelling time--and depending on the time of year, fruit picking time. My normal job is about a mile away, so I walk at least two miles a day most days. I'm slow, so it takes me about 20 minutes each way. I don't have a car and there are a bunch of grocery stores pretty close, so I schlep my groceries and other shopping home, too.

If I'm going to be walking someplace I haven't been before, I plug coordinates into google maps, get walking directions, and use that as a guesstimate. I don't care about hilly terrain unless I'm going to be carrying something heavy. There are places I'll take a bus to rather than walk, even though the distance isn't that far--under ten miles, say... but I can only safely walk five miles in one direction where I live; the other three all have freeways of some sort in the way, no sidewalks, and crazy drivers. On major holidays that people use as an excuse to get drunk (4th of July, New Years, etc) I avoid the local downtown area because it gets pretty crazy, and I won't just wander around after about nine at night no matter what time of year it is. If there's somewhere I have to be at night or I have a class that gets out later than that, I just make sure my phone's charged and I'm wearing good shoes I can run in.

The last time I had any money to spare for a vacation I went to England with friends. We stayed just outside London in a flat where the nearest tube station was two miles away, and took the tube into central London every day and just wandered around. I'd bought a new pair of boots before we left, because since we were still pretty poor, we went in the middle of winter. After two and a half weeks of walking, I'd worn through the three inch thick soles. When I went back to work people kept asking if I'd been on a diet. I'd eaten like a pig the whole time I was there. I wish my city was as pedestrian-friendly as most of London. The weather's better where I am, but it's still a drag to get around without a car.

Re: Walking distance

ansela_jonla - 2014-03-25 02:57 (UTC) - Expand

I currently walk about an hour each way to & from work (no car, no bus system in my town). I wouldn't walk that far for something that didn't pay me, unless it was a special occasion. Things I take into account: whether there are sidewalks, whether there are busy roads I have to cross. If I'm going somewhere I haven't been, I'll leave up to a half an hour early and keep checking the time as I go. I can do up to about an hour and a half total one way before it becomes "out of range" to me -- a little more for special events and really nice weather.

Walking distance is mostly a joke in the rural South as there are virtually no sidewalks outside of major cities and walking is often really dangerous as consequence (or a lot of the time everything is miles and miles away). *sad face*

Re: Walking distance

(Anonymous) - 2014-03-25 02:54 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Walking distance

lunabee34 - 2014-03-25 03:02 (UTC) - Expand

Everything is walking distance given enough time and weather permitting.

No really, I love walking. I used to walk 50+ blocks of Manhattan on a nice enough day instead of taking the subway.

For fun, when I have time, and during summer, I'll walk up to 30-45 mins. But then the walk becomes part of the outing.

In general, 15 minutes before I try to find a transportation alternative.

Then again, my scale has been skewed by this never-ending winter. Ask me again in two months.

It usually tops out at about two miles each way. It depends on whether there is a sidewalk or other reasonable place to walk (I'm not tramping two miles through a field, y'know?), if the weather is nice enough for walking (I hate walking whenit's cold or super hot), and most of all, just plain how bad I want to get to that place. I'll walk a mile and a half and cross streets with no pedestrian signals to get to a Waffle House, but wouldn't bother with a five-minute stroll for an Arby's.

At home in the central Midwest it's based on time and dangers; extremely busy interstates and highways seem to cut my neighborhood off from surrounding areas, and even then the nearest shop is a good three mile (30-45 minute) walk. Quite a bummer.

I tend to take four and five mile walks for the hell of it (and for exercise) so I'd be willing to put in an hour or two towards commute if need be.

For me it depends on why I am walking. Generally I wouldn't want to walk more than 3 miles (I used to have to walk the 2.5 miles to and from work every day), but I once walked 7 miles home from a job. (At midnight which was kinda scary and very tiring.) If I had a choice, I would ideally not want to walk over a mile or so if I had to do something like work at the end of it (I take about 10000 steps a day at work, which is apparently about the equivalent of 5 miles, so adding to it sucks), if I'm wandering in the woods or a park or something, it's not as bad.

Depends on how fast I need to be somewhere. If I have a little time and the day is nice out, I'll walk to work. I know I need to put aside 15 minutes for that though, just to make sure I get there with time to set up.

In general, any distance that I can get in <10 minutes is walking distance. For me that usually runs me 4 city blocks.

On the upper end of the scale, I'll happily walk 20-30 minutes to get to a bar or an appointment, and I've walked for hours before just for the hell of it. Plus I enjoy a 2-3 hour hike now and again. So yeah, it's not the energy investment so much as the time and me needing to be specific places.

Most of the city is within a half-hour's walk of where I live, now. I didn't know this until a couple years ago, though, when I finally got my ass off campus and was living with my (ex)partner, who walked EVERYWHERE. It was a great way to learn the city, and now I know it almost as well as my campus.

Now, it's mostly a matter of time, but I can walk anywhere within a half hour if I have a destination, and 4-5 hours if I don't. It's great fun, when the weather's nice.

So far as new routes go, I look up the bus route first, then decide if it's an area I would comfortable walking it, depending on the time of day, how virile I'm feeling, and how much stuff I'm carrying (vs. putting it in pockets). I hate carrying stuff with me in the first place, but there are some parts of town I flat-out refuse to carry a bag. It just invites unwanted attention, even if they are only asking for hand-outs.

Edited 2014-03-25 07:07 (UTC)

4-5 kms, so basically anything < 45minutes away. But I've done longer walks when I haven't realised how far something is. I just prefer not to walk to things over an hour away cause then there's the return walk which is a 2 hour + loss to my day.