Literally Walking the Walk

This commitment is long overdue, but I am also not giving myself a hard time about it because….life. I recently (2 weeks ago) made a pact with myself to walk rather than drive basically anywhere I go that is within a 2-mile radius, with some reasonable exceptions of course. Those exceptions being: time (sometimes the schedule just doesn’t permit, although I am finding that often I can move the puzzle pieces around to make it fit), size & weight (if something I am intending to bring/get is too big, bulky, or heavy to fit in my cart or stroller), wellness (if someone is sick or injured and walking could cause more harm than good…in all reality quite rare), and weather (too much rain, storms, unbearable sun). So I have been at it for a couple of weeks now and I just love it.

I spent all of my adult life, until the last few years, living in a city where I never needed a car and I walked or took public transportation everywhere. In terms of my daily transportation carbon footprint, I always felt so good. Plus, I love walking. I love the vantage point of walking, I love the closer interaction with people and the environment, I love to feel the elements and not just see them through glass, and I love the physicality of it. So I miss that. A LOT. I struggled with the transition to car culture even though some things were certainly made easier and more convenient. When I did move to a car culture, living in a location where I could walk to many things was part of my house-hunting criteria. So over the past few years, I have walked a fair amount and I think I definitely walk more than the average person in my geographical area but I also knew I could do better. And when I say “better,” I mean for the environment and also for my physical health. So…I recently made this pact with myself and let’s see how it goes. So far, I have been doing grocery shopping on foot, taking the kids to the park and the beach on foot, and running errands and going to some appointments on foot. It’s wonderful. The kids like it too—to them it feels like they are taking more adventures and if time is not a factor, they like to get out of the stroller and walk a bit as well and sometimes make little stops along the way, which makes them more active, which makes them more tired, which makes it easier for them to go to bed, which makes it particularly worthwhile for me. And an added bonus is that I kill two birds with one stone—I had been doing more walking just to exercise but now I don’t schedule that as much—my form of transportation is my exercise, or at least a big chunk of it. I do realize though, that this is not something that everyone can do in the same way and is very location-dependent. But if you can find a way to add some walking into your life, particularly as a replacement for driving from time to time, I highly recommend it. One more instance where better for the environment = better for the wallet = better for your health = WIN + WIN + WIN.