It is hard to get your daily fitness routine in if you live in a place that does not motivate you to get outside. Coming from personal experience, I know that I do not like to get my workout in in an area where I constantly have to pay attention to the cars around me. MSNBC recently published an article about the top 25 cities for walking. They used their resources (walkscore.com and prevention.com) to pull together this list of cities that are great to walk in.
They have a list of the top 25, but I’ll start with number 6, Boston, and make my way up to the top from there.
6. Boston: What brings Boston close to the top of the list is the Freedom Trail. The Freedom Trail is a great way to keep fit while learning about the birth of the United States. They try to encourage a walking atmosphere, and they strive to make the city greener and more community based.
5. Berkeley, CA: Apparently 15% of the people who live in Berkeley commute to and from their jobs. They even have a program on the first Wednesday of every month that encourages people to walk to school, work, or somewhere else.
4. San Francisco, CA: San Francisco is hilly, but it’s beautiful. They even launched a city-sponsored program called WalkFirst recently. WalkFirst’s goal is to improve pedestrian safety and walking conditions. This is done by improving sidewalks, revamping intersections, improving lighting, and more.
3. Jersey City, NJ: Believe it or not, Jersey City is ranked as one of the “Best Fitness Walking Cities” according to the American Podiatric Medicine Association. Their Liberty State Walking trail is 130 miles!
2. New York, NY: New York is a lot of fun to walk in, but maybe not so much for fitness; however, two of the pedestrian friendly improvements that have happened recently include the High Line and a more walkable Times Square. The High Line used to be 1.5 miles of elevated freight train tracks, but it is now a promenade over the Hudson.
1. Cambridge, MA: Bringing things back to Massachusetts, Cambridge is always packed with runners, bikers, and walkers. Harvard contains so much history that you might get distracted while you are exercising, but it is so worth it. Plus, the Charles and the Esplanade are right there!
