How far do you walk?

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I've been deeply shocked at some of the expectations on threads recently, that a child can't manage a couple of miles to school, etc, when in my day we all did it, without exception.

I do think that younger generations are incredibly out of the habit of walking, and missing out on so many benefits, social, physical health, mental health, enjoyment, being in touch with your environment, etc. Walking home together was a daily social event at my school, we walked around 3 miles home from primary, and maybe 3.5 miles from secondary.

My own children went to a school 4 miles away, and there was a bus, but they mostly preferred to walk, and are all fit, healthy young adults now who regularly do sport, as in team games a couple of times a week ( in their mid/late 20s)

I walked 7 miles to school during the pandemic, as our school didn't want staff on public transport, and we all had to sign to agree the policy to avoid public transport as far as was reasonable - this was not a problem, I enjoyed it

I have cancer now, and cant do as much, but still enjoy walking the 7 miles home at least once a week, instead of getting the bus - highly recommended by oncologist

A week or two ago at school I witnessed a school boy being challenged on his lateness, and he had a complete temper tantrum at the suggestion that he could walk to his train station while his usual bus was on diversion. It was less than a mile and a half, he was totally outraged at the suggestion.

AIBU to say that walking regularly is life enhancing, and the current generation are really missing out, and it is a habit that needs to be built up, and encouraged, rather than avoided?

Walking is fine in principle but the time is the issue. Even a 30 min walk with a primary age child means 1 hour for the adult, so working hours between 10-2ish. Then factoring in time to eat and study and go to recreational classes... we would never fit it in.

Fine if you're happy for walking to be the main exercise but not if you want to use the time to do different exercise or learning.

Most People don't have time to walk miles everyday, it's just not feasible.

Constantly 2 miles a day

Definitely agree. I walked a mile to school as a teen, my parents would never have given a lift. It’s such good exercise if you walk fast and incorporate hills. And all these people drive to go to the gym, so ridiculous.

There's an opportunity cost to walking as a form of transport. I just checked the distance to my DC's music class and it's 4 miles away by walking - Google Maps estimates it as a 1.5hr walk. We take the tube and a bus and it takes about 40 mins, which means we have time to stop off at home and eat and chill, and get there in time and do some reading while we wait for class. Then afterwards we can get home by 7pm instead of nearly 8pm, so we have time for supper, reading, bath and bed time. It's also dark and cold, and often rainy, and after school so DD is already tired and it's nicer to just get home as quickly as we can. I don't think any families who go would consider walking that distance - almost everyone else drives so they don't even walk to and from the station, just a few steps to their car.

Today we had a swimming lesson and a theatre show. We stopped off at 3 different playgrounds in between and afterwards, taking the bus. If we'd walked we wouldn't have had time for all that playing, and it wouldn't have been particularly interesting or fun for dcs to be walking through busy London streets just getting from A to B.

We're a typical London family, we don't have a car but we use public transport all the time. It doesn't cost me anything to use the tube or bus, and my dcs travel free, and we are busy with all the activities on offer here, so it doesn't make much sense to walk to all the places we want to go. The dcs spend hours in playgrounds, pools and on trampolines and in indoor play areas, and doing various sports and dance classes and they are certainly very active, plus those activities support other skills like hand-eye coordination, musicality, water safety, upper body strength etc, whereas walking is relatively limited in comparison.

2-4 miles on a beautiful day is fine. We have about 5 of those a year in the UK.

I walk 15k steps most week days, more at weekends.

I think as a non driver you have to live somewhere with good public transport to live a full life. Luckily I've no desire to live anywhere without plenty of stuff on my doorstep.

The thing is, that's a big expense in itself. Living in a city with good public transport costs much more than living in a small rural
town with few amenities and poor transport.

If I wanted to move to our nearest town, our mortgage costs would double (at least). Not to mention the increase in council tax and other things - especially as we'd still need to run two cars for work:

I don't drive, that helps. But I walk loads. My step count is closer to 20k than 10k a day. My kids are brilliant walkers too.

I don't enjoy walking and I'm not very good at it so I would rarely plan to walk more than half a mile or so. I do use a bike for shorter journeys instead of the car tho. My teens do about a 20 min walk and a ten minute walk either side of a train journey to school. DS once cycled to school but it took an hour and he was exhausted and took his bike home on the train!

I do think a lot of people including myself drive distances they could easily walk or bike. But in my case as with others it cones down to time. I can get to work in five mins drive or about 25-30 mins walk. I don't have a spare hour to spend commuting because I often have further work appointments closely one after the other.

It's a shame you work in a school with such a judgemental attitude towards young people.

You mean a school where students are expected to make an effort to get there on time, even if a bus being on diversion means they have to walk a mile and a half to the train? Not being able to walk a mile and a half is shocking

It's fine as long as they don't have extremely heavy rucksacks of text books

I do the school run on foot, scooter or bike, as do my twin 5 year olds. In all weather conditions (mobility allowing, as I have chronic health conditions that fluctuate).
I think time is a factor for a lot of people because of work, though.

For those short of time, cycling can often be quicker than driving

Most people I know don't work school hours even if they drive! You use childcare. I worked full time, did the 40 minute walk to school every day as I used the wrap around clubs.

Again, depends where. In the south east, I imagine it would be or in a major city like Manchester.

I don't live in the city boundaries, I live on the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire border and it really isn't expensive, as a single person I couldn't live here if it was! My rent is £500pm for a 2 bedroom flat. Granted it is housing association so it is a bit cheaper. And my council tax is £90 a month, I do get single person discount though. My town isn't particularly desirable. But the buses run 24 hours a day which I like!

I love walking, we do it as a leisure activity frequently.

But to walk to anything other than the primary school would involve either unlit back lanes or an unlit NSL road.

We have about 4 buses a day and approx 7 street lights

I could easily walk to work but don't due to school timings. I do know it's a poor excuse in my case as I could probably do it with a few adjustments.

That said, a walk with a podcast is actually one of my favourite things to do in leisure time.

DS walked a lot as a pre-schooler. He walks less now as we live near to his primary school but will walk about a mile to secondary school. He is very fit through doing sport, which is important to me, but I actually don't think a longer walk to and from school is productive as it eats too much into homework time.

My judgement is reserved for people who drive on the school run but insist on driving right to the school road instead of parking 5 minutes walk away.

I agree. And often waiting for the bus takes longer than walking!

DS(14) went to a friends house recently with some other boys his age. All live half a mile away or less. The mum sent a message around 7pm asking if we were OK with them walking home, I said fine it's 5 min walk, the others were collected in the car.

I don't do any regular long walks but I probably walk an hour a day when I do the school and nursery runs, and half an hour (bus stop to work, then work to bus stop) on my office days.
I don't mind walking for an hour to go somewhere if I am not in a rush and it's a nice day (otherwise I'll get the bus).
We go hiking occasionally though which is obviously longer than 1h (the kids manage fine and are usually busy chasing each other with sticks)

I don’t think YABU but for me it’s the time rather than anything else. I take the kids to school but need to be online by about 9ish to start work- if I walked them there (about 35 min) I wouldn’t be back in time. Ditto pickup- I can’t justify taking an hour and 15 min out of my day when if I drive it’s 30 min max. I also have kids activities (like swimming, brownies etc) some of which start at 4 so that would be difficult to fit in.

I know very few families with a SAHP these days- most of the time both parents are having to work all hours to make ends meet and this is a big part of it. The idea of many people driving huge cars 500m for no reason is, IMHO, misguided, quite often there’s another reason behind it, usually time/ money. I don’t know anyone who would drive kids, if any age, to school unless they had to.

We do do good walks at the weekend though.

We only pay £336 a month for our mortgage, so an extra £160+ a month would be a lot of extra money to have to find on top of everything else, especially as we'd still need to run two cars for work. Although I guess if neither of us drove at all, then we wouldn't do the jobs we do in the first place!

But our nearest town (we're in Cumbria) doesn't have a regular bus service and the trains only run up and down the coast, so you'd still be very limited without access to a car.

It's a time thing for many, including myself.

My kids school is a mile away so perfectly walkable and we do walk once a week. However the other 4 days I start work at 9am a mile back on myself around the corner from my house. Even if the gates opened promptly at 8.45 it still takes me 20 minutes to walk back making me late. To walk back to get the kids I need to clock out at 2.45 instead of 3 meaning I lose pay. Works out around half an hour a day which all adds up.

We get home and I do the jobs and then when my husband is home I can go for a run and/or to the gym like I do every weekday I'm not at work.

My job is active so I average 10,000 steps a day when I'm there anyway.

Weekends are taken up with house jobs, another run, the gym and sometimes we go for a family walk.

The trouble is in this country in winter the weather is miserable and its dark early. Nobody wants to go walking when it's sideways raining and freezing.

It is very easy to be reliant on our cars and sometimes I'm guilty of using mine because I'm lazy but often it's a time thing.