How many miles is a good 'walking tour'?

Old Nov 19th, 2017, 04:22 AM
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How many miles is a good 'walking tour'?

I'm trying to put together some city walking tours for some friends and finding I want to make them 4 or 5 miles long. While I think that's a good length I'm afraid it may be too long. Most walking tours in guidebooks are only a couple miles. I'm thinking about 'walks' that would take the average person about half a day, not counting lunch or going into a museum, etc. Say the average person walks about 3 miles per hour, then TRIPLE that to allow for stopping to take photos, detour down a side street, pop into a building/church, maybe stop for a coffee, etc. then it would be about a mile per hour. Right?

Just wondering what you would consider a good length.
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Old Nov 19th, 2017, 05:37 AM
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For reference, on my last trip to Madrid I walk an average of 7 miles per day from the moment I leave the door to when I come back and take off my fitbit to shower. This is more walking than my elderly parents can do but less than my active brother. It's a know your friends thing. If they don't walk a whole lot normally then it will be tiring.
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Old Nov 19th, 2017, 05:50 AM
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Interesting question which I guess I won't answer directly. I think you have to decide on the relative importance of three things:

What do you want to see?
How long to you want to spend on the tour?
How far do you want to walk?

The length of the walk would be the least important consideration to me.
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Old Nov 19th, 2017, 06:22 AM
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Why not ask your friends how far they'd want to walk and go from there. A walking tour usually has stops to look at historic sites, or whatever the focus for a variety of interests, so might be composed of as much looking and learning as walking. While I might walk 5 miles a day going from A to B (more when I was younger, maybe 10) it would be less if stopping & starting.

You might consider composing them in a series, if your friends are unsure, walks where another begins where one finishes so they can continue for as long as they're able any given day, then pick it up again another day. For instance a 3 miler followed by a 2 miler. 5 miles seems a lot if there's much to see along the way.
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Old Nov 19th, 2017, 07:13 AM
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Good advice above and while there are some "it depends" in any answer, I think your plan is reasonable. For the record we tend to walk a lot, perhaps 7-8 miles day while touring a new town or city on our last few trips. Gotta walk off those pastries!

One suggestion that we have found helpful is to include a short brisk walk as part of the day, maybe 1/4 to 1/2 mile where you just move and don't stop. While this might be tiring in a breathless sense we find it overall more energizing than slowly ambling around all day.

This doesn't always work if there is something really interesting to see en route, but usually there's a part of the walk that lends itself to covering distance quickly.
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Old Nov 19th, 2017, 11:12 AM
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Hard to say, as it depends on what people want to book, and I would guess, but don't know, that most people don't want to book city walking tours that last that long and cover 5 miles. I have never taken a walking tour that was meant to cover vast areas, though, the ones I have booked in Paris are ones that concentrate on one particular neighborhood and those typically last 2 hours. I book in terms of what I want to see and how much time I want to devote rather than number of miles, of course, but I know those go together.

I use the treadmill regularly at the gym and I would not say that the average person "walks" at 3 miles per hour. Not when just out casually ambling about. Three miles per hour is a healthy clip that you have to work at and are noticeably power walking, I think. It is for me, anyway, it isn't my normal walking speed. I would guess that the average pace of people on walking tours is more likely 2 miles per hour, you aren't walking briskly at all on any of the ones I've been on, they are not major hikes. Of course, they weren't billed as exercise walks, and they did stop for the leader to talk and explain things as well as perhaps entering and viewing some sites, which adds more time.

If you think there is a market for people who want to take a walking tour that takes up half a day, I still might not expect that to cover 5 miles, though, due to breaks. Last year I did am approximate 4 hour tour in Krakow but we did stop for refreshments once, plus stopped various times for discussions, going into sites, and used the tram to get to/from the major location we were walking about, and I'm sure we didn't cover 5 miles in that 4 hours. I would guess 3 at most, but I'm not even sure it was that much.

It isn't clear to me how much time you expect this 5 mile hike to take up. it sounds like you perhaps think that if someone walks 3 hours per hour and you are trippling that time due to stops, you are expecting one mile per hour to be covered and thus a 5 hour walking tour? I just doubt that many people would want to sign up for that, but you should know that better than I do. If you are only doing this for your friends, I agree, why not just ask them.
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Old Nov 19th, 2017, 01:07 PM
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I think it also depends of the density of things you'd want to stop and look at. I sometimes walk all day in Rome, but I doubt that I cover five miles (albeit I've never measured it). There are things I want to stop and admire every 100 meters or so.
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Old Nov 19th, 2017, 01:27 PM
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Walking tours that I am familiar with are not conserned with how much distance you cover, but how much time is involved. Most city walking tours are from 4 to 6 hours in length and may cover a small area such as a cities old quarter or art center.

If you want to go for distance, then don't consider it a "walking tour" but getting in a little exercise while out seeing the sights. We did more then 8 miles one day in Lyon last spring, and it seemed like it was all uphill, but the weather was perfect and it was a great workout before sitting down to a big lunch (typical Lyonnaise cuisine).
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Old Nov 19th, 2017, 01:44 PM
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I walk a lot too, I probably cover 8-11 miles a day at least on my good days. A lot of that is unintentional wandering, or getting from point A to point B

But I can tell you that a five hour walking tour is too long for me. It’s drudgery, unless I’m in a really, really good mood and into the topic.
4 hours is about my limit, and I don’t think 6 is typical at all. I can walk all day, I just can’t appreciate a walking tour that long. And I can’t picture shufffling along a group of friends like that. Most people really aren’t into walking for the sake of walking. I’d focus more on density- what there is to do in an area- and less on distance.
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Old Nov 19th, 2017, 02:07 PM
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I'm an avid walker and hiker, but I'd personally not be interested in a city walking tour of more than two hours.

The key here is 'city'. I can walk all day in the mountains or the woods, but my attention span is much shorter with cities. And the pavement/cobblestones don't help.
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Old Nov 19th, 2017, 02:49 PM
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Thanks for all the replies.

I'm not planning on leading groups on these 'tours', merely putting together something people could use for self guided walks. I've given my notes to people who've then asked things like 'what order would you do this in' and 'how far is it from A to B, etc.'. There's a blog feature to the site I use for my travel photos so I could also post these 'walks' there and people could use them if they found them helpful (I'm not planning to make a business or anything out of this).

When I travel I average 9 miles/day on most trips, and last year I took a friend who had never been to Italy and we walked even more than that (I think I was holding her back). But I know lots of people have trouble or don't walk to walk anywhere near that much. So was just curious what others thought.
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Old Nov 19th, 2017, 03:38 PM
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Another "it depends" answer, with yet another consideration: I'm not inclined to follow a walking tour just for the walk; I want to be sure to see the places along that "walk" that are of interest to me. I remember using recommended walking tours on my first few trips -- usually laid out for between 2 and 4 hours, IIRC -- and ended up being frustrated by them, because I would reach places at the times that were "wrong" for my interests.

Another challenge involved start/stop points -- while I used to prefer the "circular" walks, because I could start at a place that suited ME, they aren't necessarily very efficient -- if several miles are involved (and I would find that reasonable), it can make more sense to take public transportation from one or the other end -- but then the route doesn't translate well to unique needs.

I typically plan my days using google maps with an eye to where I need to be when (to see a place before it closes) or when I would be able to walk again (because something has just closed).

So, while I think you are generous to consider suggesting some walks to your friends, I wonder if you might do them a greater service by suggesting how they might construct their walks. JMO.
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Old Nov 19th, 2017, 03:56 PM
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We've started doing city walking tours or food tours most places we travel. It's not so much the distance as the time. I find 3-4 hours to generally be a good length of time. In Marseille recently the "Greeter" was going strong after 5 hours. I was ready to go back to our apt, put my feet up & have a glass of wine. On trips in a city I generally walk 8-10 miles a day, but I wouldn't want to do that much on a walking tour. I noticed many tours indicate how much walking there is and I dont recall seeing many that are as long as you suggest. I'm sure there are some, just havent seen any.

I would love a friend to design walking tours for us. It's very nice of you to do so.
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Old Nov 19th, 2017, 07:17 PM
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It depends on many factors.

Target crowd: If you are designing something for a suburban drive everywhere crowd, even two miles can be too long.

Time of year: Summer travel favors shorter walk under direct sun.

Place: It is harder to cover the same distance at hilly locations.

Type of path: Rough cobblestone streets like Prague taxes the feet harder. Also harder to walk are soft gravel path like the hiking path between Imerovigli and Oia.

I walk minimum of 6 miles a day with a target of 10 miles.
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Old Nov 20th, 2017, 03:48 AM
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It is an interesting question which I have never thought about. In thinking about it, I think of walks in terms of what I most want to see, not how many mile I am going to log. We have a rough plan of what we want to see, how much time it might take and probably where we plan to end. We may spend all day and do only a few miles some place like Pompeii or Rhodes or Dubrovnik and walk miles in Rome or London. We are city walkers though, not country hikers, so we can end the walk whenever we want, stop and eat or sit in a park and get a taxi or bus to the next place or hotel.
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