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How far are you willing to walk?


Lauren CW

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It maybe depends on the conditions you have to walk in. 10 miles in a blizzard, or across a desert, probably not. 10 miles walk by the river on a nice summer afternoon, absolutely, I would do the walk just for the pleasure of the journey. Still, walking along beside a busy road is not one of the more pleasant situations IMO. Cycling might be better.

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Will you be walking back? I would find twenty miles in a day to be a bit excessive, and would probably take a bike. As noted above, conditions such as slope, humidity, and elevation come into play as well. At 6,000 feet, with minimal moisture and on a nice day, I generally hop on a bike for journeys over six miles round trip, unless I have nothing else on my agenda.

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I'm going to break with Iffy and assert that I will walk farther alone than in company. It gives me the opportunity to stop at my leisure, listen to an audiobook if the outside world does not require my attention, and cut across country with impunity.

 

I will also walk much farther in the back country (hiking or bushwhacking) than in a town or along a road, and will extend a trip significantly if I have not walked that way before.

 

(I prefer hikes of 5-8 miles per day. I do not like mountain biking, as I find my concentration is more on the trail than on my surroundings.)

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If a trip will take me more than 10-15 minutes to walk, I will usually ride my bike. I enjoy long walks, but if I am specifically trying to go somewhere rather than just going out for a walk, I am more likely to bike. For what it's worth, the longest bike trip I've done was about 90 miles.

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I've commuted daily four miles each way on foot. More than that and I'd really need something faster. Walking ten miles each way will probably take over five hours; I object to spending more time in transit than doing whatever it is I'm traveling for.

 

—Alorael, who has walked ten miles in a very large loop in a kind of real-life fetch quest loop. It was a nice day, he didn't have anything else to do, and it was fine. But most of the time he'd at the very least take a bike.

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Originally Posted By: Actaeon
I'm going to break with Iffy and assert that I will walk farther alone than in company.


I don't mind walking; since I don't have a license I have to do it more often than not. But nothing is more terrifying than walking around at night and seeing a group of teenagers. Perhaps I'm just paranoid though...
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If I'm planning to be at my destination for a while, I'll walk about 3-4 miles; if I plan to run an errand and return home immediately, I make it a 5-mile round trip. When I'm on a bike, those distances are more or less double.

Originally Posted By: Actaeon
I'm going to break with Iffy and assert that I will walk farther alone than in company.
The same is true for me, and I can go faster, too. I tend to walk at a fairly quick pace (I've clocked myself at just under 4 mph); and when I'm with someone else, it's very tiring for me to have to stop every so often for them to catch up.
Originally Posted By: Lt. Sullust
But nothing is more terrifying than walking around at night and seeing a group of teenagers. Perhaps I'm just paranoid though...
You're not really paranoid; most teenagers I've known are just that bad behind the wheel.

 

For me, the most terrifying thing I've seen was when I was in high school. Some teenager was flinging a Ford Aerostar around a snow-covered, half-full parking lot. I'm surprised he didn't cause any damage to anyone or anything nearby.

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Originally Posted By: Lt. Sullust
Originally Posted By: Actaeon
I'm going to break with Iffy and assert that I will walk farther alone than in company.


I don't mind walking; since I don't have a license I have to do it more often than not. But nothing is more terrifying than walking around at night and seeing a group of teenagers. Perhaps I'm just paranoid though...

Nah, don't be paranoid of teenagers. Be paranoid of everyone at night. There's some sketchy people around. I personally wouldn't trust a single person walking along at night that I didn't know. The night is just a...more dangerous time.

Then again I'm simply paranoid in general.
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Originally Posted By: Trenton the Crazed Twilight Teen
Hey! Why are we more dangerous than grown adults? Even the average 17 year old?


Well, society has had many times longer to install a sense of social expectation into adults. Teenagers, on the other hand, have underdeveloped or impaired reasoning abilities, a sense of personal invulnerability, the physical strength to match or exceed older adults, and often no sources of comparable income to an adult. If I override my nausea and hop into a paranoid suburban mindset for a moment, I can see why I would be scared of teenagers.
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There are some things wheels can't do. For everything else in life there's bicycles.

 

There's a forested mountain by my house which I hike in the summer. It's about ten miles to the peak. I'd ride my mountain bike but the last two miles cannot be feasibly crossed with a bike due to the thick shrubbery and lack of a trail. I could leave my bike where the road ends but I'd rather not.

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I am significantly less careful about wandering around at night than I should be. Partially, this springs from living in a small town, but I think I also have a touch of invulnerability complex left over from my teenage years. I tend to assume the average gang of high school ruffians (whose parents and older siblings I probably know) don't feel like tangling with a six foot bearded guy wearing a trench coat.

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I walk nearly a mile to and from school each day. A few years ago, I walked twice that just to avoid riding the bus. With an iPod and no company, I have no issue walking a mile for something. Two and you're pushing it, just because I don't feel like walking back. Anything more than that, and you had better have a really good reason for bringing me.

 

Then again, my parents are great about giving me rides when I need to be somewhere, and many of my friends can drive me if I'm doing something social.

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I'd walk around 3km, but at least 15km on a bicycle. Its quite possible that I could cover more, but not without a nice soft drink.

 

As for going around at night, nobody will spring at me from the shadows (over here, at least) as it's a small, friendly village. But though I fancy midnight strolls, my hostel rules are a bit restrictive about the timing.

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Originally Posted By: Mysterious Man
When less than sober, on a Halloween night in which my friend abandoned me at a party for Wilma from the Flintstones, I walked 10 miles to my vehicle rather than wait for him to wake up, hung over, next to some stone-age hooker.

Yabba dabba doo!


Heh... That sounds familiar.
Some very interesting trouble to get up to in this hippy college town near Canada.
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Originally Posted By: Mysterious Man
When less than sober, on a Halloween night in which my friend abandoned me at a party for Wilma from the Flintstones, I walked 10 miles to my vehicle rather than wait for him to wake up, hung over, next to some stone-age hooker.

Yabba dabba doo!


the first time i read this i thought you said that you were dressed as wilma from the flintstones

that would have been a better story
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Originally Posted By: Lilith
Originally Posted By: Mysterious Man
When less than sober, on a Halloween night in which my friend abandoned me at a party for Wilma from the Flintstones, I walked 10 miles to my vehicle rather than wait for him to wake up, hung over, next to some stone-age hooker.

Yabba dabba doo!


the first time i read this i thought you said that you were dressed as wilma from the flintstones

that would have been a better story


As I walked away... the building exploded. I didn't look back.

Does that help?
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I've walked the 2.5 miles to the office where my wife works a few times, and before we got married and moved back to civilization, I had a 3-mile route that I'd stroll once or twice a week.

 

More than that, though, if time or self-presentation wasn't a factor, and given the option, I'd bike (I prefer biking anyway). Anything that doesn't fall into that tends to be related to work, so I have a car for those.

Would I walk to work? No. My office is 15 miles from home, and the local highway and freeway system makes a direct walk nearly impossible. One of the downsides of living in suburban NJ.

 

_________________________

The Silent Assassin wants you to know that he uses a combination of Floo Powder, Black Helicopters, and rootworms to travel, though mostly, the repair bills come back from Greyhound and NJ Transit.

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Originally Posted By: Randomizer
I'd walk a mile for a Camel.

Click to reveal..
No I wouldn't since I don't smoke.


I used to 3 to 5 miles but it's not worth in Arizona's heat.

I was trying so hard not to say that.

I miss being able to take long walks. In Jr high and high school we lived about 1 1/2 from school, so I always walked. Got, rain? Got rain coat! In the army I was always chosen for straggler control on our 10mile road marches. I'd go back to the last straggler, grab his attention, and march him back to the column. Then turn around and go grab another one. On a ten mile hike, I probably would do about 20. I miss that.
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