What areas are within walking distance in your home?

[Boo8er]

As it says on the tin, what areas are within walking distance from your house? For me the only thing that is within walking distance is a park from where I live. How about you?

[Asta Kask]

The lake and the great outdoors. Miles and miles and miles of forest.

[Cyrion]

My local Target store.

And a nice little greenbelt that's got a couple of lakes that make for good walks. Also, my local athletic club- most importantly, the pool.

[valadil]

More stores and restaurants than I could ever hope to visit. A few colleges, a couple movie theaters. Public transit in case I need more things to go to.

[Remmirath]

A university, downtown of the town I live in, various restaurants and shops (although sadly only one book store any longer), a few schools and playgrounds, a nice if somewhat small natural area that runs along the river, lots of other houses (some along nice tree-lined streets), and a theatre or two. Less than I'd like, basically, and especially less non-city stuff. I'd prefer to walk everywhere if I could. There are also several bus stops, but I usually ignore those unless I feel like getting somewhere late and dealing with large numbers of people in close proximity to me on the way.

"Within walking distance" is probably something that varies a good deal from person to person. I consider anything within an hour from my house to be within walking distance, which is probably roughly a three mile radius. I don't usually want to walk much longer than that in order to get somewhere, although I'll happily walk longer than that if I'm just walking in an interesting area.

[inexorabletruth]

2 restaurants, 3 car dealerships, 4 parks, a snow cone stand, a frisbee golf course, a library, a recreation center and a water park.

There used to be this gaming center, but the location went out of business before I moved here. I wish they would have stayed in business a little longer, because I would've hosted soooooo many nerd gatherings there.

[Starwulf]

Nothing but trees, and some distant neighbors(closest is my step sister at 1 mile, next is 2 miles). Kinda hard to walk anywhere interesting when you live on top of a mountain :)

[SarahV]

More stores and restaurants than I could ever hope to visit. A few colleges, a couple movie theaters. Public transit in case I need more things to go to.

Pretty much this, since I guess valadil and I are neighbors I'll add a few things though: parks, museums, schools, libraries, art galleries, music venues, a river, a jail, crackhouses, whorehouses, hotels, a couple of candy factories, at least one brewery, a nuclear reactor, a couple of stadiums, a bunch of graveyards...

Some of these things are more useful and desirable than others

[Knaight]

I'd define walking distance as about a three mile radius - while I can walk further than that, in practice I generally bike. Within that are three parks*, one university, a number of restaurants (largely in a ring around said university, plus a section of town called old town), several grocery stores, four banks, a post office, two bus stations, one high school, one middle school, something like eight elementary schools, a mosque, two synagogues, about a dozen churches, a number of specialty stores, two foosball bars, at least a dozen non-foosball bars, three microbreweries, a distillery, and a number of other things that I've forgotten.

It's one of the benefits of living in a college town.

*One of these is less than a block away.

[factotum]

Within what I'd call walking distance? Two convenience shops, four assorted takeaway food shops, a restaurant, sandwich shop, three pubs, a window dealer, two second-hand car dealers...if you were to push it out to the three miles that certain people seem to think is easy walking distance (), then you can add more stuff than I can count easily.

[Serpentine]

Within a 10 minute walk there's a couple of bus stops, my sister's place, and a few shops including a nice bakery and a couple of ridiculously expensive hairdressers. Within 20 minutes there's two or three parks (one of which has an incredible view of the city), a cemetery (in horrible nick), a train station and a major busway. Within 30 minutes there's my university, a cinema, a major... I'm not sure what to call it but it has a whole lot of parkland, cafes and an artificial beach you can swim at, another major shopping district with lots of hipsters and cafes and restaurants and things, some more parks, a Hindu shrine thing, a German restaurant, a couple of pubs and bars, and a couple of my friends.

[Asta Kask]

I'll have to amend my answer.

Within walking distance is a lake, a large forest, a health care center, several stores and pizzerias, a church, hairdressers,a bakery, a hospital and a bus stop that will take me to the center of town in about 15 minutes.

[mistformsquirrl]

Hrm, depends on how much of a day of it you'd want to make I guess... theoretically you could get anywhere in my small town pretty easily just walking (I've gone from my house to Wal-Mart - on the other end of town - and back before); but the furthest I like to go is probably the downtown area where the library, courthouse, theatre and lots of small shops are. There's also a couple small parks there as well. And bars, lots of bars (I don't go to them, but they're there!)

2 gas stations, a Subway, Dominos, Family Video, Lincoln College (a 2 year community college), Little Ceasar's, Jimmy John's, First Wok*, Mello-Cream donuts, hrm, a liquor store, car insurance place...

... There's a lot of stuff in easy walking distance of my house, because I live just off the main street of my town <,< It's convenient, but noisy.

*Amazing Chinese food; at least imo. < ._.> Certainly the best you'll get in this area by miles.

[Castaras]

Walking distance for me is up to 40-50 mins away. I'm willing to walk quite far.

Within ~15mins? The university, the little town/village directly next to my city, the Student accomodation for university, one of the high streets full of shops, the best pub in the city, many takeaways, Dominos, the A6 road, expensive and uncomfortable cinema.

Within ~1 hours walk? The city centre, the gaming shop, the other end of the village, the other university in this city, varying streets and shops, cheap and comfortable cinema, the Leicester Space Centre (barely. Walked that distance before, it's a looooong way).

[Haruki-kun]

Grocery store, a couple convenience stores, small park, ice cream and popsicle store, two sushi restaurants, a taco/baked potato joint, a few banks, a department store, a mall, a church, hot dog and burger joint....

.....but it's too hot to walk anywhere, so...

[Traab]

Walking distance to me is 3-4 miles. So, we have a mall, a couple dozen places to eat, from fast food to 5 star, 2 parks, a hospital, something like 6 schools, multiple banks, coco keys which is a water park inside a hotel, all indoors so its open year round. 2 movie theaters, several patches of woods to wander in with some trails included, and enough homes to find hundreds of people if you include everyone inside the 4 mile diameter. Something that may not be QUITE walking distance but right near the border, a lake with slides, beach, play areas for kids, basketball courts and a skate park for older kids, and plenty of spots to run a barbecue and a little further down the road a massive area setup for little league games to be played several at a time. Once again maybe just out of range in another direction is another park with two very packed playground areas, a skate park with rails, ramps, and other stuff to do tricks on, and a wooded area with miles of trails marked on them that go everywhere, with plenty of nice spots to stop and take a break along a nice cool stream/river.

Lets just say I am rarely bored and have lived here for over 18 years.

[nedz]

Walking distance is pretty meaningless — I routinely walk 6 miles, sometimes more, which covers most of Central and North London. It would be pretty silly for me to list what that would include — but it's quite a lot.

[Starwulf]

Even if I expanded my range to 6 miles, it would still be "woods, and people whom I don't know". It's 8 miles to the nearest town for me, and that is NOT walking distance, especially considering the walk back would be 4 miles up a fairly steep mountain. I can get to the Sideling Hill Creek in about 3 miles, and if I follow that for a few more miles it eventually feeds into the Potomac River ^^

[Surfing HalfOrc]

Depends on how you define "walking" distance. My apartment here in Korea is one of the few "sort of" isolated from the rest. There are two Evervill Apartment complexes, directly across from each other. Behind both apartments is a forested area on the side of a steep hill, which can be a pain to climb.

To the left and right on the main road are some small farms, and up the hill to the left is a soccer stadium. Too bad for me, I find soccer slightly less interesting than watching paint dry.

Now, if you walk about 4km to the left as you exit the apartment you reach Yangju New City, with parks and shops and theaters! It is within walking distance during the spring and fall, but the cold of Korean winters, the muggyness of Korean summers, and monsoon seasons all make the town "driving distance" for most of the year.

Two km to the right as you exit leads to another semi isolated apartment complex, and the subway, thus putting most of Seoul within "walking distance." Seriously, Korea's subway system rocks! Fast, cheap, goes everywhere!

[Aedilred]

As with others, there's walking distance and walking distance. Anything further than 20-30 minutes I tend to consider too far for practical purposes on anything other than an occasional basis, especially since public transport is generally very good. I tend to mentally categorise London distances by whether they're walkable, whether I'm prepared to take a bus (I don't like buses), or whether I'll need the train/overground/Tube and if so how many times I'll need to change.

The City is a little over an hour away on foot and when I was working in that vicinity I did occasionally walk home from work if I had nothing better to do. Actual stuff worth doing in the centre of town is further away, closer to two hours. I've walked back a number of times from there, usually late at night, but that's something I wouldn't do unless I fancied the exercise or had no other way of getting home. Within practical walking distance from my house are a number of shops including supermarkets and a retail centre (B&Q, PC World, etc.), the centres of a couple of the local districts, a large and scenic cemetery, a couple of fairly nice parks, and a football stadium.

Within short bus distance (i.e. I can tolerate it) are Greenwich and Blackheath, and the Oval cricket ground, as well as a number of small museums and the like, mostly to the south.

[factotum]

Even if I expanded my range to 6 miles, it would still be "woods, and people whom I don't know".

So, is your stepsister a wood, or a person you don't know?

[Starwulf]

So, is your stepsister a wood, or a person you don't know?

Lmao, I figured since I already mentioned her I didn't need to do so again.

Though after I thought about it, there is actually a Gas Station about 5 miles from here, going the opposite direction you would go to head into town. But, it would involve having to walk back ALL uphill, which would suck, LOL.

Ahh well, at least the woods are pretty, though they have been becoming a bit more dangerous in the last few years, I've seen quite a few bears lately, as well as several bobcats, both of which are usually a more "rare" sighting. The bears have been all over the place, it was just a momma and her cubs, but now the cubs are all grown and have taken mates as well, I saw 3 bears together a few months ago.

The Bobcat is a youngling, or was as of a few months ago when I saw him in the middle of the road. I stopped and stared at him, he stared at me, then he jumped over the guardrail and went down into the woods :)

On the plus side, I've only seen ONE snake this summer, which is very unusual, and I wasn't even the one to see it, my wife was. Though, it wasn't one she recognized, it was black with a brown stripe on it, which doesn't sound like a garter snake to me. Hopefully that will be the only sighting, 3 summers ago I ended up killing 3 rattle snakes and 1 copperhead, I was very unhappy with that, don't want my girls getting bit ><

[banthesun]

Nothing but trees, and some distant neighbors(closest is my step sister at 1 mile, next is 2 miles). Kinda hard to walk anywhere interesting when you live on top of a mountain :)

I'd say it sounds hard to walk anywhere boring

For me, I consider myself to have a reasonably large walking range, but close by I have several parks, the botanical gardens, a warf, two pools, a very small beach, a shopping center, the red light district, and the cbd.

[KuReshtin]

In a weird twist of logic, I'd say that Serpentine, who lives on the other side of the planet from me, probably has a better grasp of what's in walking distance from my place than I do, cause I'm a lazy bugger who use my car waay too much, when I really should be walking.

But, off the top of my head, I guess I would be able to walk to any place in the town I live without any major effort.
Supermarket, several pubs, several convenience stores, several restaurants, a Viking museum/experience/exhibition, a bowling alley, a couple of parks, several fast food/take away outlets (Subway, fish'n'chip shops, pizza places), several banks, charity shops, computer shop, several florists... the list goes on and on..
I'd say that I could probably get to either end of town from my place in about a 20 minute walk.

[Gnomvid]

Within walking distance is the town center with the stuff usually associated with town centers (shops, pubs, clubs, various assorted gruberie's, supermarkets, building supplies places, etc. etc.) a river, a golf course, a hill top with a nice view of a large part of the valley and river and with a little stretch 2 other towns although they are all practically connected.

[Rodin]

I would do a lot more walking if Texas understood the concept of "pedestrian". It's about a 10 minute walk out of my apartment complex before I hit sidewalk or even a shoulder, so it's walking along a busy street on the road or walking through the drainage ditch before I can actually make it to an area I'd want to go. Even then, the majority of shops other than my local grocery store are several miles further than that, making it impractical most of the time.

As a result, I tend to ride my bike or drive out first and then walk once I'm in a pedestrian district. There's a nice waterway near the mall with tons of restaurants and such. Even so, a bunch of the stores by the mall have, you guessed it, no sidewalk leading to them, and no shoulder on the mall ring road and trees/shrubs right up to the edge of the road so you pretty much have to take your life in your hands if you want to go to the noodle place.

I would love to live somewhere like Guisborough, where you can walk through town to the market street or up onto hiking trails and up onto the moors at a whim.

Of course, the other downside of living in Texas is that we're in the 3 months of "hahahah, being outside during the daytime, that's cute" we get every year. High heat, high humidity...bleah. We make up for it in the winter though...already counting the days until the weather breaks September/October and we get the gorgeous weather that's perfect for going biking in.

[Chen]

I'm right in the heart of a big city so 20-30 min walking distance would get me to pretty much anything I could want. I'm also about 5 minutes away from a subway stop that can take me all around the city. I've lived in the more suburbs part of Montreal, and being right in the city is so much better. Being able to decide to just go walk somewhere and find some random place to have supper is fantastic.

[valadil]

Depends on how you define "walking" distance.

I'm defining it as the distance where walking is the most practical way to go. I can drive faster than I can walk, but the time spent finding a parking space usually offsets that so I break even.

Pretty much this, since I guess valadil and I are neighbors

I'll append other playgrounders to my list.

I used to have a gaming store (Your Move Games) in walking distance. But it was bought out and then shut down by the gaming store in a distance that I have walked but find impractical to do so regularly (Pandemonium). Back when the first place was open I sometimes had writers block while working on my game. I couldn't pretend to be a hipster and write in a coffee shop, but getting a coffee and writing where other people were gaming was pretty cool.

[Fragenstein]

I'm defining it as the distance where walking is the most practical way to go. I can drive faster than I can walk, but the time spent finding a parking space usually offsets that so I break even.

By that definition... three parks, a greenbelt, a bike trail connecting to a state-wide network, multiple bus routes, a hardware store, my barber, my chiropractor, three pizza places, two Chinese restaurants, one Mexican restaurant, a Laundromat, a fudge shop, an independent clothing store, an upscale restaurant that's been in decline for years, a barbecue joint, two pharmacies, a convenience store, my insurance agent, a tanning salon, a tailor, two VFW posts, a Freemason temple, a t-shirt shop (unless that's gone out of business), two churches (one of which is also a private school), two retirement homes, two sports bars, a tattoo parlor, two gyms, several PS Vita gamers, a minor bakery of some sort, and at least one sex offender as of my last look at the list.

Oh. And a book store, for however much longer that last. Our comic book store lasted only a year or so.

I'd have to walk around and take notes to fill in the stuff I'm missing.

[FLHerne]

Half-a-dozen pubs (including the one next door), three churches, one river, two bridges, a twice-weekly market, one middle-sized supermarket and two small ones, the local library, a swimming pool, two boatyards, a bus station and guided-bus stop, and quite a lot of other town-centre.
The downside is that the nearest place to leave a car overnight is half-a-mile and one bridge away.