[famahar]

I walked across Tokyo last weekend. Took me 20 hours. I suck at writing so all I'll say is that everyone should walk across a city. It's a magical experience. Turn off your your phone, bring a disposable camera and a compass and just walk. You'll discover so many personal insights.

[gullywhumper]

For my 30th birthday a group of friends and I walked the perimeter of Manhattan island. Except for a section along the Harlem river, there are paths along the water the entire way so it required almost no navigation. We picked up and dropped off friends along way that only wanted to do parts of the walk. And we stopped at several bars too, meeting other friends that just wanted to have a drink. We started at 8am and finished just after 4am. I would definitely do it again, even without the friends or bars - but they definitely made it a memorable adventure.

[screye]

Manhattan is my favorite city to walk in alone.

Manhattan can be enjoyed without ever bringing your gaze to the ground level. The diversity of architecture means that every block feels fresh. World renowned classics, the sheer scale of central park and the greatest hits of art-deco. Pair that with new spots like the Highline, Hudson yards, Little island.... and it keeps on giving.

And then you come back down to earth and Manhattan also happens to be the best city for people watching. What a delight !

[mcntsh]

I really do not like walking in Manhattan. The city blocks are so short so you're constantly having to cross hectic streets, an the grid nature of the city means you're pretty much walking in long, straight lines. In my opinion, it's hectic and at the same time monotonous.

[prepend]

Just walk along streets rather than avenues and the blocks become quite long.

[gcanyon]

I've biked that route several times, but I bet we got entirely different impressions due to travel method.

[sph]

If one cannot afford to travel, videos such as these are a good alternative:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgfd-uWTVwg (Kyoto under the rain)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgYPErtoljI (A stroll in a small town near Tokyo)

[jvm___]

This was my early pandemic habit. Watch a long, walking only, YouTube video of some far off place. The best ones had no talking, just the ambient sounds and sometimes a on-screen note about something you were looking at.

The fascinating thing was watching pre-pandemic videos and your own response to groups of people and hearing coughs inside buildings.

[sph]

Yeah those videos kept a lot of us sane. My jam was Martijn Doolaard's series of him restoring a rustic country house in the Italian Alps.

I still put that on on days where city and modern living is too much and I need to remember what being in nature feels like.

I strongly recommend it to anyone.

[tasuki]

> need to remember what being in nature feels like

Have you considered... being in nature instead?

An audiovisual experience, no matter how great, will always miss the smell, touch, and taste of actual nature.

[sph]

I have, yes.

[tkgally]

That’s quite a walk! Where did you start and end?

For about ten years, I walked every New Year’s Day from my home near Yokohama Station to somewhere in Tokyo—Ikebukuro or Ueno or Asakusa, about 35 kilometers one way. Very memorable, as you say.

I don’t think I would do it in the summer, though.

[famahar]

Started in Hachiōji and ended at the start of Chiba prefecture. The heat made it tough. I was thinking about doing a walk from Tamagawa station to Yokohama this weekend. I love seeing what's between all the stations and building up a new mental map of the area.

[tkgally]

You might want to start in Yokohama and walk north to Tamagawa Station. Then you won’t have the sun in your eyes so much. (That factor is more important to consider in the winter, though, when the sun is low and the sky is often very clear.)

Enjoy your walk! I did that route only once, and it might be the nicest one. My usual route was parallel to the Keihin Tohoku Line—Tsurumi, Kawasaki, Kamata, Omori, Shinagawa, etc. A bit industrial, but not bad on New Year’s Day.

There aren’t many possible routes because there are very few bridges over the Tama River.

[ninjin]

Indeed, I was about to comment on it being a lovely and enjoyable idea to stroll through Tokyo. But doing so with peak temperatures in the mid-30s may make it much more challenging as I know I personally would need to dive into convenience stores now and then just to cool down.

Seconding building a mental map of the city, although I did so by biking for many many years. Only took a few weeks to feel confident about getting pretty much anywhere in Tokyo on a bike.

[tkgally]

Yes, building a mental map was one of my original motivations for walking from Yokohama to Tokyo. When I did the walk for the first time, in 2006, I was working in Tokyo and had traveled between it and my home in Yokohama hundreds of times, but only by train. I worried that, if I were in Tokyo when a big earthquake struck, I wouldn’t be sure about the best route for walking home. After walking the other direction a couple of times, I stopped worrying about that.

On the day when I could have actually put my newly acquired geographical sense to good use—March 11, 2011—I happened to leave for Osaka a few hours before the quake struck. All of my colleagues either walked home or slept in the office that night, while I had a comfortable hotel room in Namba.

[resolutebat]

If, on the other hand, you experience Tokyo mostly by train/subway, your mental map is a bunch of islands, and it can be weird when you walk your way from one to another and suddenly your mental compass shifts. For the longest time, I thought the Hachiko crossing was east of Shibuya station, and my mind was blown when I walked to Shibuya from Roppongi and realized I had it backwards.

[johnwalkr]

My mental model of Tokyo changed a lot when rental scooters became available. Especially traveling East-West, there are a lot of places much closer together than you'd think from the subway maps.

[ghaff]

Especially in areas where a lot of subway lines get close together, subway maps often expand the area so you can be better see the stations/relationship between the lines. I tended to mostly take the subway into Boston as an undergrad and generally only walked in a fairly small area of the city. I remember once doing multiple line changes and realizing afterwards that my destination was about 3 blocks from where I started.

[throwaway290]

Not to invalidate your experience in any way but I think it is a special case of walking in any big city you have never been before. As long as it is sufficiently dense/walkable and you don't need to fear being robbed, it's magical. Taipei, Seoul, Bangkok, you name it...

[famahar]

I agree. I hated walking in the city I lived in Canada before moving to Tokyo. It wasnt very walkable and you really needed to plan for any type of long walk as you might end up in a place with no food or drink shops anywhere. The way Tokyo is zoned allows for every possible convenience I need within a mile of everywhere I walked. I felt extremely safe at all times too which made things way less stressful and allowed me to be completely in the moment.

[throwaway290]

Agreed about mixed zoning, I should've mentioned that too. It does not necessarily go hand in hand with walkability, you also want to be able to buy eg. water especially if it's hot. But I guess it usually comes together with density

[blululu]

FWIW, I’ve walked across San Francisco many times and the longer I live there the more I enjoy traversing it. The city is beautiful, walkable, filled with nice spots to stop for snack/beverage and nearly half the expanse can be covered by walking through Golden Gate Park down to the ocean. I can’t vouch for most cities, but I suspect that a lot of them are much less pleasant underfoot.

[cdelsolar]

One of my favorite things to do in SF, and I've done it a handful of times, is to rent a bike at the Embarcadero, and bike to Sausalito across the Golden Gate Bridge, have ice cream at Lappert's, wander around, and take the ferry back. Just wonderful days.

[pb7]

Love walking in San Francisco. Feels very European in that regard.

[cpursley]

You can't really walk across North American cities, they just don't have the pedestrian infrastructure.

[macintux]

Sadly true. I’ve walked miles across parts of Indianapolis where I’ve been at significant risk of being hit. No sidewalk, and bridges are hair-raising.

[tornato7]

Most cities have a coastline or a river that you can walk a great distance along.

[tetrep]

While a compass helps with orientation, it doesn't help you find where you are or where you're going, so a map might be a good addition (or a replacement, as I find it pretty trivial to orient myself in a city when given a map).

Why a disposable camera? I would think any user preferred camera would be fine, even a cell phone (just put it in airplane mode to avoid distractions).

[famahar]

With a disposable you'll need to be more intentional about how you want to capture moments. You only have 20 shots and no extra features to create the "best" shot. You begin to really value moments when you know that it'll make the cut for one of the 20. And you don't over think it. Just a quick snap is all you can do. Every shot matters but at the same time doesn't.

[gottorf]

As someone who used to be very into photography, there are two other artistic advantages of a disposable camera or film cameras in general.

One, that you cannot see the photo you just took; it makes you more careful with your framing (similarly to your point about only having so many shots), and further helps you stay connected to the scene, instead of "chimping" the shot you just took.

Two, that because there is a period of time elapsed between when you take the shots and when you get back the results after the film has been processed, there is an additional delight factor when you get your photos back, and it can help you see your shots in a different light.

It's an interesting phenomenon that a technically superior implementation don't always mean the artistically superior implementation. Of course, a working photographer (working in news or sports) will sensibly choose the technically superior implementation; but the dilettante has more options, and I encourage all of them to explore those options.

[tetrep]

Ah, okay. I'm pretty judicious with my camera use anyway so I didn't realize people needed help with that.

[dreamcompiler]

TIL disposable cameras are still available, and apparently quite popular for weddings.

[ianburrell]

I’m surprised they are still a thing of weddings now that everyone has smartphones. Maybe they are considered nostalgic for the period before smartphones and digital cameras. Or maybe there is no good way to share photos from guests.

[lost_tourist]

I think the bride/groom buy a bunch and hand them out. You're supposed to put them back when you're done and then they will have the photos all aggregated and publish them online. Tends to lead to better candid moments for the wedding. At least that's what happened at a couple of weddings I went to.

[rjh29]

That sounds fun.

I'd recommend Kyoto too. I cycled around it a lot but never got tired of the little side streets, temples and older houses.

[w-m]

I’ve often done that in Paris, absolutely enjoyable. Through the city proper you only walk a little over two hours north-south or east-west. With a few detours to points if interest and breaks for coffee it’s one of my favorite ways to spend a half day.

[mikhailfranco]

Walk Paris in August when the weather is good, the days are long, and it's empty, for enhanced experience

I once had a long train 'connection' from Gare du Nord to Gare d'Austerlitz, early in the morning, which I decided to walk. Magical.

I took a photo of the Arc de Triomphe in the sunrise without any cars on the Place d'Etiole. Literally zero. I walked across to the Arc.

I have treasured photo, blown up to a poster, which hung on my wall for many years as a student.

[cdelsolar]

I walked across most of Barcelona a few years ago, fantastic experience. On the few solo journeys I've made I get a ton of walking in like this, but yeah, you definitely need a rest day or two.

[lm28469]

There is a name for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dérive

[famahar]

Ooo, thanks for the link. Led me to this interesting app with the same concept

https://www.randonautica.com/

[gghhzzgghhzz]

That's a far far bigger endevour than my efforts.. but I do love walking from a city to the airport, dragging my carry-on if necessary.

The last part can be a bit stressful, as airport terminals are not always made for pedestrian access. But it's very satisfying to feel like you have 'escaped' a city under your own steam as it kind of falls apart and back together.

[The_Colonel]

What was the distance? Tokyo seems immense and seems difficult to cross efficiently (you have to make a lot of small detours).

[famahar]

Total was 90km. It was a mostly straight shot from west edge of tokyo to the east edge passing through central tokyo. It's one of many routes and I only saw a small slice of it. It's a bit of a labyrinth at times if you don't stick to the main roads. I hit a lot of roadblocks and winding paths through residential areas. I didn't want to overplan though. Getting lost was part of the goal. All I knew was that I had to head east.

[developer93]

If you want to keep your phone on, street complete can be very rewarding, especially in places with not so much osm coverage.

[abdusco]

Thank you so much. I read about this app here, but I couldn't find it later when I moved to Germany. I'll use the shit out of this app.

[arcanemachiner]

https://streetcomplete.app/

[developer93]

Haha that would have been helpful to include. Thanks for picking up my slack!

[famahar]

Great idea! Will be taking this on all my long walks. Tokyo is lovely for this. Neighborhoods are so dense.

[simonebrunozzi]

I follow Craig Mod [0], who regularly walks in Japan. You might find him interesting.

[0]: https://craigmod.com/

[pengaru]

I've walked across SF multiple times, it is fun, but maybe doesn't qualify being not even 10 miles. A fit person can easily run it.