Walking distance to town/village

[1Wanda1]

Very boring thread alert... I want to book holiday accommodation that's walking distance to the nearest shops/restaurants. This doesn't seem to be a search criterion on Vrbo and other holiday sites. Anyone know how to do this?

I use google maps and look at the road/pavement etc. to decide if it is a safe walk.

We were caught out very badly recently in the UK.
Hotel website said a "short walk" to the shops & restaurants, but did not mention how steep it was. 20 minutes going down, & over 30 coming back is not my idea of a short walk.
I'm hoping someone can answer, without the faff of using OS maps & contour lines.

I think Booking.com is quite reliable for the exact location, along with studying Google maps for a feel for the general area, and location of restaurants/supermarkets etc. If it's a hotel/apartment block, look for the location on it's own website. In booking.com, I'll choose the place I want to be on the map and search/sort by distance.

This is an important criteria of a holiday for me, so I use more than one source to verify the location and I avoid airbnb for this very reason as it only shows the general area and it could be quite a way from where you want it to be.

Georgy Many coastal areas, especially islands like Canaries, Mallorca, Malta, are very steeply hilled into the sea, so if a property is inland, it's likely to be up a steep hill - we had a near miss with this in Meilliha in Malta, it said it was a 10 minute walk up towards the town, but then we remembered we'd driven up a steep twisty road to get there.

On Vrbo you can filter :
Neighbourhood
Location
Nearby activities

I avoid booking sites that don’t give me the option to search by map location.
I prefer to look at a map and click on only properties in the area I’d like to go.

@Georgyporky

We were caught out very badly recently in the UK. Hotel website said a "short walk" to the shops & restaurants, but did not mention how steep it was. 20 minutes going down, & over 30 coming back is not my idea of a short walk. I'm hoping someone can answer, without the faff of using OS maps & contour lines.

Make a shortlist of properties and look at them on streetview.

Oh gosh. I don't have the energy/time to look at properties one by one, then check each one's location... it would take so long!

This seems like a gap in the market for holiday searches

Reviews will often mention the location/proximity to amenities. Cottages.com has a 'one mile to station/pub/shop' filter which is helpful.

It doesn't take much time, and I don't check properties one by one. I just search for ones I like, are in budget and look like they're in a suitable location and then double check before booking that they're actually where they say they are, and that there's a supermarket and some restaurants and any other amenities we're looking for in about 10-20 minutes walk.

If the first one I pick isn't right, I'll move onto another one, but it's an important factor for us, so worth double checking that it's not two miles up a steep hill or whatever.