Why You Should Walk

I come from a long line of people who walked.  My grandmother never drove a car but she would happily get around by walking, often for miles and miles, to visit friends or go to the store.  Her brother walked five miles a day into his 90s, and my great grandfather was a sheepherder who walked with his sheep for miles everyday.  For fun, free, and frugal exercise, nothing beats walking!  Here's some reasons why you should walk...

• Walking is free!  No need for an expensive gym membership, just put on your shoes and head out for a stroll.
• Walking has a lot of great health benefits.
• Walking can be a solo or social activity (I like walking by myself as well as joining my walking club every other week for group walks).
• There are so many walking clubs and organizations!
• You can walk outside in urban, suburban, or rural places or you can walk inside on either a treadmill, around you local mall, or my default when it gets to be 110 degrees outside--in our local casinos.
• The only gear you really need is a good, not necessarily expensive, pair of shoes (unlike golf or equestrian or boating sports which cost an arm and a leg when it comes to gear).
• You can have great conversations while walking (I've yet to see marathon runners have good conversations while they huff and puff up and down hills).  On our group walk today we talked about genealogy, bird watching, health and nutrition, aging, traveling in Europe, and a bunch of other things...our walking club members are endlessly fascinating!
• You see things when walking that you don't notice when you drive (I walked down a road a few days ago that we drive down often but never noticed that one house has a tiny home in its back yard--interesting!).
• It can be faster to walk than drive!  Where we live, traffic is getting so bad (lots of traffic, not many traffic lights yet) that it can be faster to walk to the store than drive since you have to wait so long to get through busy intersections).
• People are friendlier when walking.  For some reason when people get into their cars here, they turn into raving lunatics but when you are walking along the trails in our city, people are relaxed and friendly, often saying "hi" or commenting on the weather, the dog someone is walking, etc.
• There are all kinds of walking.  From competitive race walking to long-distance hiking, to short 5k/10k club walks to mall walking to crazy ultra long distance challenges.