Comment by keiferski

Yeah I was doing a challenge of walking entirely across the city, from Woolwich to Heathrow. I think I made it to about Chiswick before my phone died and it was too dark to keep recording on my GoPro. So maybe 30-35k or so that day, and another 20k or so the day before and after just exploring the city more informally.

Agreed that walking is the best way to see a city, for sure. I have done similar one day walks across Brooklyn, Manhattan, etc. and always really enjoy the experience. Usually I have a kind of set goal, like “walk entirely across X place.” I think in Istanbul though I mostly just wandered for 100km (over the course of a week.)

This past summer I walked about 124km around Paris over 5-6 days, going in a spiral through all the arrondissements. That was a great way to discover some new neighborhoods.

I completely agree, it's fantastic both for general fitness, and as a way of exploring. I do this on a smaller scale on a daily basis, walking the 8-10 km route to or from my work (when we have office days). This is walkable in about 1.5 hours, public transport would get me home in around 45 minutes, so I am not really investing much extra time. Varying the route slightly keeps things interesting, and you get a surprising variety with small (1 to 2 street) changes.

Another favourite of mine is cycling around a neighbourhood to get to know it; you get a totally different feel for things than from a car - things typically go by slower, and you are somehow just far more able to observe things.

But are the places you’re eating 1) fairly affordable and 2) quick / fast food and not a proper sit down restaurant?

I had an extremely difficult time finding places with those requirements. Everything seemed to require sitting down for at least 20-30 minutes, which didn’t fit my walking schedule.

I didn’t have the same problem in NYC or Paris, where it’s very easy to find a variety of places to grab a kebab, baguette sandwich, pizza slice, dumplings, etc.