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Comment by nickjj | Hacker News Reader

For around 10 years I've walked 2-4 ~(3-6 km) miles a day but when traveling I usually go into hardcore walking mode since I like hiking and exploring places on foot. It's not uncommon to end up walking 12-15 miles (~19-24 km) for those days.

Has anyone experienced walking a solid 8-10+ miles a day for a few weeks straight? It's counter intuitive but everything seems to work better. I'm less tired, eat less and I have more mental clarity.

It is a world of a difference compared to 3 miles a day broken up through out the day. I wonder if I've built up a tolerance or if there's something biologically different from putting in longer sessions.

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I walked about 15 miles every day while hiking El Camino de Santiago. I lost around 50 pounds which would probably be unhealthy under any other conditions but I've never felt better and kept the weight off for years after.

Respect, especially if your route was anything like the section I recently passed along in the north. The road spent more time going up and down, and in and out of every coastal inlet, than actually progressing. Some amazing scenary though!

I did not do the northern route which I hear has spectacular views. I did the "French way" which I liked so much I did it again in 2017, however, it ended up being a completely different experience than the one I had the first time and I ended up finishing it in just 20 days. Did you end up doing the entire northern trail or just parts? When did you go?

I moved to a downtown neighborhood a couple years ago, and got rid of my car when I did. This meant way more everyday walking, and I noticed an almost immediate improvement in how I felt. I'm not even walking as much as you are and it still made a big difference.

On days when I end up walking further, like a long distance grocery trip or whatever, I'm tired that day but usually do feel better the next day.

I try to get 20k steps/day (10 miles). The jump from 10k to 20k steps/day was a big improvement: better sleep and clearer thinking. Most of those steps are from walking. It helped sprinkling in some hard efforts (running/basketball) that push breathing from ~18 to ~40 breaths/min. Feels ancestral: lots of walking, punctuated by occasional all-out bursts.

Indeed, I walk several kilometers a day for health. The only drawback is that I wear out shoes within a few months!

I buy sacrificial walking shoes, usually Sketchers. They look ugly but only cost 30% of my day-to-day shoes.

Best I ever feel is when I'm walking 4+ miles daily. The phenotypic human body (not to dismiss any individual's disabilities or idiosyncracies) is top-to-bottom built to walk long distances, and bipedalism is an older trait of our evolutionary lineage than a lot of the other qualities we take as "human."

This really stuck with me from studying comparative primate physiology as an undergrad. The human leg and foot is a total outlier in comparison to any other primate's limbs. Our bodies are incredibly specialized for walking and running.

I think a big factor is what you're not doing, or what you're not thinking about. Disconnecting from modern life likely has as much an effect as the exercise itself

I have a 10km walk with some elevation in the nearby woods, I do it several times a week if possible (it takes me ~2 hours). I listen to podcasts during the walks. A few times a months I try to do a fast pace ~20km walk in mountains. Currenly I don’t have issues going 30km fast pace without stopping. A few times a year I do multi-day long distance walks (with some 50-60km days). It seems to bring me a lot of inner peace and better sleep.

I've had similar results biking 30mi+/day

I recently finished a challenging project, and spent a few weeks just hiking 15-20km a day, what a difference it makes. But scarily, it was just starting to feel addictive, just before I was thrown back into this crazy world.

From your own description it sounds like the change of scenery when traveling might be just as important as the distance you walk? How did you eliminate that variable?

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