Europeans, how far do you walk for groceries?

1km, 12 minutes walking

The closest supermarket is 6km away. I either walk or cycle 1k to the bus stop or all the way by ebike. The way home is super steep, otherwise i would probably take the normal bike. It's nice, because i can go all the way without touching an asphalt road.

I'm not really a European but I'm close enough I guess (Turkish). The closest supermarket to me is less than a hundred meters away, with 3 others available in a 250m radius around my home.

3km walk in this weather sounds like hell to be honest. You could use a grocery delivery service though if you have one available in your country.

Even fairly rural Europeans will consider that to be at least cycling distance.

I have four supermarkets in a radius of about 500 metres. Not only do I regularly walk, I pretty much buy only what I need for a few days, safe in the knowledge that if I need something now, I can be out & back in under half an hour, also knowing that most supermarkets here are reliably stocked with just what I need.

My usual place is 250m from my home, or around 3 minutes walking. There's like another 5 supermarkets, 5 bakeries, 4 greengrocers and 3 butchers about 500 meters away (off the top of my head, there could be more).

500 meters. If the store were at 3km I'd bike there, not walk. I feel like 500m is still an okay walking distance, but at some point I regularly went to a store 800m away and I already preferred to bike there. Walking 3km is definitely a bit of a time investment

About 1km one-way. I usually walk

In Norway. Technically in a city, but it's very rural. About 30 minutes of walking with a descent of ~150 meters. Carrying groceries back up that hill is a big test of stamina, so we very rarely do it. We mostly drive to the store.

Your friend is full of shit. 3km is a very long distance for walking to get groceries, and I can imagine that you have to deprioritize heavier groceries all the time due to that distance. I'd recommend getting a bike or electic scooter or something to cover that distance. Basically no one in Norway would have 3km to their nearest store with walking as their only option.

6km, I drive ..

I'm in Vienna, Austria. I have 5 supermarkets and 3 pharmacys in a 10 minute walking radius.

Outskirts of Budapest, closest supermarket is bit more than 1.5 km, so I did my daily shopping when I walked the dog. I would guess 45 min round trip.

Used to be 5km where I grew up in the Netherlands, nowadays living in Germany it's 1km but uphill (don't have those in NL!). In either case I don't want to walk it and there's not a chance I would if it's 30 degrees out: that temperature means it's probably in a month of the year where I burn within 10-20 minutes. I'd have to put on sunscreen for going to the store! They better have a sandy beach aisle

My day to day shopping is 600-800m away.

My specialty store is 1.1km.

3km is a bit too far for me.

The most I've ever willing walked for groceries is 1.5km

I have a small shop with basics and a seasonal farm stand about 400 meters from me and I walk that for anything I need from there, or another larger but still small shop another 300m past the first one. But selection is limited.

There's a gross supermarket about 2km away, and I wouldn't object to walking that, but I don't think I ever have. In the same amount of time I could drive 4km to the good supermarket or large green market and get better products. I regularly go for 5-7km runs, often past the gross supermarket, so it's more so that if I need something from a supermarket, I would rather do a full shopping trip, or stop at the store or market on the way home from work.

I live in Berlin. I can go shopping for groceries, head back home, cook a meal using those groceries and eat within one hour of home office lunch break.

The closest one to me is about 1km, I walk there if I don't have to get too much stuff. 3km? I don't know. In nice weather maybe, if I'm not in a hurry.

The closest grocery store/supermarket is around 1km away from my house and a few others are just slightly further away. I could walk there, but I have better ways to use my time, so I just go with my bike.

The pannier bags also enable me to buy heavy stuff without having to lift it the whole way.

My day to day walking to grocery stores is something like one kilometer. Bus goes every ten or fifteen minutes near my home. I don’t like biking that’s why I decided to walk. Every now and then I walk to the city, which is 5 km from my home, I don’t think it’s too far, but if I go to shopping there I usually come back with a bus.

People in this thread seems to live near big cities, which isn't really representative of the whole european population.

I live in rural france, the closest grocery store since I was born is 20km away (20min drive, no bus), and I moved 3 times - still about 20km.

Lots of people I know would love a store to be 3km away

200 meters

50 meters

I live in the pedestrian zone of a semi large German city. There's three grocery stores within pissing distance.

My last flat was a little more remote in comparison but still nowhere near 3km to the next store. I wouldn't be willing to walk that far for groceries tbh. I enjoy taking walks but not with a shitload of food I have to haul all the way home. That's a cycling or public transport route for me.

If I was you I'd take a large hiking backpack or rolling suitcase, walk to the store an hour ahead and then ride the bus back home.

Hunter-gatherers used to forage in a radius up to 10k 😁

That's cycling distance. A nice bike ride to pickup shopping.

My closest supermarket is 400m away, and the next supermarket over is 1.1km. I walk there daily, sometimes multiple times a day. 3km is quite far and I would not consider that walking distance.

It's certainly possible to walk that distance once every (couple of) months, if I did not have my bike available for whatever reason? But I would consider regularly walking 40 minutes one way every other day to be far too much. That distance is cycling distance, not walking distance.

On a side-note. Did you just say that the bus arrives only once every four hours? My lord.. It might as well basically not exist at that point.

I live close to the central area of an ~80,000 population city.

Looking at Google maps I've got about 10 general stores within 300 meters, probably thrice that within 500m, plus plenty of smaller specialised stores.

300 to 600m seems like a reasonable distance to walk to and back with four to six bags of groceries.

For smaller more specialised shopping trips one or two kilometres would be fine too.

Three might be a bit much, though I've often walked that to go to the cinema.

Aussie, but the strip with a butcher, grocer and IGA is about 60m away, if i want more supermarkety goods i'll hop on my pushbike or walk the 1.4km to Europa

NYC. I walk a round trip of 3k for groceries twice a week. Not unusual to walk 5k per day.

For me it’s either 600m to a small corner shop or about 1.1km to a larger store.

I do 3km periodically for another store, but I wouldn’t do it in 30c weather. I’m barely willing to exercise in 25c weather.

900m. I live at the edge of town...

I have shop few meters away from my home, but I only go there, when I forgot to buy something or just quickly need snacks for a movie or it's bad weather, but usually I just buy everything from other grocery store which is 2 km away, but I like their food selection more and they got cheaper prices. Sometimes I also walk to big supermarket which is 4 km away.

3 km doesn't seem much for me or most of my friends,some of them even own a car and still walk 2-4 km to the grocery shop, instead of driving, but some people I know, would rather drive a car or take a bus.

About 200 meters, but I usually take the bike down to the Lidl 1 km away.

Where I last lived I had 200 meters to a small shop and 3.5 km to the local Lidl, which was fine but not ideal.

Getting a bike with a rack might be a good idea for your grocery runs. 3 km is less than 10 minutes on a bike.

I recently moved somewhere a little further from the shops. I can take the bus part of the way but still need to walk around 1km each way, so I've invested in a Clax trolley to carry my groceries.

If I was in your situation, I would buy a light, foldable cart, take the bus to the shops, and walk home.

We have two supermarkets within five minutes walking distance, if you make it ten minutes, it's four.

Also within ten minutes walking distance are two middle schools, a primary school, and two kindergardens, several doctors and apothecaries, several shops, and the central bus station.

The latter is a bit of an disappointment, as not only the bus service is low frequency, and it takes an hour+ to the city.

400m, or 500 in the other direction.

BUT: no one around here would walk 3km. Hell, most people won't even walk the 500m.

I bike (more carrying capacity) about 9km each direction. (Belgium to Germany, funnily enough.) That being said, not wanting to do so under the burning sun is absolutely valid.

I live out in the countryside. The nearest store is about 2.8km away. Put on some good music, get an ice cream for the second half of the trip, it's a lovely walk. I could catch a bus back, there's a stop right by the shop, but my timing is generally shite. If I'd be halfway home by the time the bus comes, I'd rather just walk.

Eastern part of Germany here. The closest grocery stores are about 2,5km away from my home, but we live a little more rural than most of the people in the thread. I don't walk that distance for groceries, because they don't allow dogs in, but one of the supermarkets has a DIY store right next to it, and I do walk there to get smaller items and have a nice walk with my doggo.

I'm American. I regularly walk to the shop that's 1.75 km, won't drive it because it's too close.

The closest Real Grocery is 2.5km, that I take electric bike. Same for the Whole Foods that's much farther (5.5km) but that I consider an adventure ride and certainly not a walk. The groceries would melt by the time I got home if I walked.

All of these my husband drives to, and I think that's more typical. I have hangups about driving short distances.

About 500m or, if I want to go to a larger supermarket, about 2km.

Netherlands, Rotterdam. 4 supermarkets within walking distance. 1 less than 10 minutes, 3 less than 5.

Vilnius, Lithuania. 3 different shops 5 min walk from home. And its not even high density urban area. I shop almost every day

When I was in a similar situation, I wish I thought of “one way”. I realized after the fact that many people were walking one way to the store but taking a taxi back with their load of groceries. However I have no idea whether it was actually affordable or if that was their only choice.

You should look into that. How affordable is a taxi if you only take it one direction?

Got four different shops within ~500m.

I don't have to walk more that 10 minutes to a "grocery store" where I live (which is kind of in between rural and urban) but occasionally I might walk 3+ km and back to somewhere with a better selection, take a backpack, that's not an unreasonable walk to me. If I had to do it every day I might complain.

I've lived in different places here, currently I have a couple of options in a 400m radius, in my previous house I used to have two options in a 100m radius. Before that I lived in another country and had a small market at around 600m and the nearest supermarket was at 1.5km, I almost never went to the big one and instead had them deliver to my house, but it wasn't a chore going there, it was just boring and a waste of time when I could just order online.

A few years back I used to live in a small city and my options were 1km for a small market or 3km for a big one, you sort of get used to going the 3km to the big one when needed, but it's not fun, and I would consistently put out going to the big one until it was absolutely necessary. I believe 3km is bike distance, sure you can walk that much, it's not that far away, but it takes a long time and is exhausting carrying lots of groceries in summer for that long.

All of that being said, I was not born in Europe, so locals might have different opinions, although I think everyone I've talked to thinks that above 1km it becomes bike/scooter distance for routine things (you don't need a bike if you're going to the cinema at 1km, but grocery or other routine stuff it's worth the investment just on the time you'll save)

3 Km is what? A half hour walk? I've lived in multiple European countries in my life and never been that far from a supermarket.

I mean, I definitely have walked that much daily. My longest walk to work I can remember was maybe 40 minutes. In some places where I'd take public transportation for like 20-30 min I've walked for an hour when I felt like it instead.

For groceries I don't think I'd take that with me that far walking unless it could go in my backpack. But seriously, if you don't have a shop in that radius around you in Europe you need a car anyway because you're out in the middle of nowhere.

But also, in European supermarkets you can normally get big grocery hauls delivered that far away. Just go there, buy your stuff, pay, book a delivery. Lots of old people who can't carry heavy weights do it. They still go to the shop, though.

3km is kinda far, even with a bicycle, I have a small shop down the stairs and a medium supermarket at 5 min walk

My nearest store is about 3km away and I will usually walk there unless I'm picking up anything especially heavy or bulky.

80 meters lol. I've lived in cities, where it's always been less than 700 meters.

• 180m to the nearest small supermarket which has a satisfactory selection
• 450m-650m to three normal-sized supermarkets which have everything I need in daily life
• 1km to a mall which has everything I could ever ask for in life

Yes, I live in the city.