How long would it take an average 10 year old to walk 200 miles, how many days, how many breaks?

[Walkingtimes]

My youngest wants to do something for a charity v. Close to home and has got one idea of walking from (hospital) X to place Y (close to cause).

Should I encourage/discourage, of the former how to go about planning! Thanks for any feedback.

I assume this is virtual? So maybe two miles a day logged in an app. So a couple of months allowing for the odd day off.

That sounds an awful lot, have they done anything like that before? The average walking speed is around 3 miles per hour, so roughly 30 miles covered if walking for 10 hours without any breaks.

How is this going to be funded? I assume it will involve many overnight stays? Is this money going to be deducted from the money raised?

I would imagine that it will all depend hugely on his level of fitness and how far he normally walks.

2 miles, the average 10 year old can easily walk double that, surely?

i reckon 1 mile per day for each year of age. So 200 miles = 20 days for a 10 year old. I’d expect 2 miles per hour to allow for rests, but extra for lunch. So those would be 6 hour days.

Well ideally not virtual but actual. Self funded with any donations straight to charity .

Initial replies telling me really not possible ??

How are you planning to do overnights?

He walks 2 miles for school run (1 there, 1 back) does daily mile at school and then generally very active

Zero thoughts! Hotels/ air b n bnb as opposed to camp due to age

Well, I mean, it’s doable. But you need to allow a month, realistically. And you need to have support for your DC for overnights and transport. It’s a proper, huge, commitment.

An adult will need to go with your DC. But you’d need to properly plan it out. With proper plans for overnights. Sometimes the sleeping place will be off your preferred path. If you’re not experienced walkers, I’d think very hard about making it virtual. I’d also think hard about how you’ll verify that DC has actually done it. I’m going to say again - 200 miles is a huge commitment.

I followed a page of a young girl walking for charity and she was doing 10/12 miles a day. So by that I would say 20 days but then I’m not sure my 9 year old(who is pretty active) could walk that far day after day.

Thanks all! Food for thought indeed

What about cycling instead of walking? Or a combination? Or walk the equivalent amount of steps but not the actual journey? I assume this will be during school holidays? 6 weeks , 11500 steps a day will add up to the 200 miles if my maths is correct

10 miles a day, 20 days

It is a lot, but manageable

What a kid!!! 🏆

Could he cycle the 200 miles? Is he likely to have much left over if accommodation comes from money raised ?

Are you planning on walking with him? Camping's fine at that age, although you'd probably have to carry the bulk of the stuff.

This is quite an undertaking, but if you're both keen to do it it's achievable.

Coast to coast is just shy of 200 miles and people usually take 2 weeks to do it.
As someone else said where you stay isn't always exactly on the route so that's extra miles.
My mum has done lots of these types of walks and it is really hard going doing 10+ miles days after day

Perhaps take him on a 10 mile walk so he can see what it's like.

Well that’s why she’s asking isn’t it. No point even thinking about planning anything if it’s not going to be doable.

Why not suggest he does it virtually? Realistically, it isn’t going to be possible unless a parent can take a fortnight off work and accompanies, and accommodation would wipe out any money raised.

But surely the costs of doing it it will outweigh any sum of money he could hope to raise, unless you have lots of very rich generous friends.
It's very admirable of him, but he won't have given a thought to how much a b&b costs.
I'm sure there are lots of other things he could do

To give you an idea of how long it might take though. My son did a 30 mile walk in a day. It took him about 9 hours.
However he was a scout and they were used to yomping over fields and doing long walks. He was shattered for days.
If he's not an experienced walker I would say attempt more than 10- 12 miles a day, otherwise he will just be too tired and will need a few days to recover at the end.

My 12 year old DS walked 50 miles (Mendip way) for fun/personal
challenge. We did it in 3.5 days, setting off by 9am each morning , walked a steady pace with plenty of time to arrive at our night stopover locations in mid to late afternoon. I also made sure our stops were in places with decent public transport just in case he wanted to stop or skip part of the trip (weather was wet wet wet). He loved it and it was great spending that time with him. Distance was just right for us. Not to short, not too far.
It did cost though probably £400 for accommodation and meals out. We started the wlak at Weston super mare train station and finished in Frome and took the train back to WSM. We stopped over at cheddar George, Wells, Fro
e and a spa hotel on the route somewhere a couple of hours into the walk that I can’t remember the name of.

You'd also need to account for

• unsuitable weather (I'm guessing you would be looking at summer holidays so there is a possibility it would be too hot to do safely, plysrain/wind at other end of scale

Injury

Training beforehand

I I was supposed to do 100 miles in 4 days 20 odd years ago... we trained for months, including 50 miles in 2 days. The actual event was abandoned due to weather and this was various military groups from around the world. (Temperatures reached 40 in the shade)

Cycling or a virtual walk over a couple of months would be more realistic. A friend is doing a 30 night camping for charity (aged 14)