Walking Time Calculator

How long does it take to walk a mile?

About 20 minutes at a normal pace. March along at 4 mph and it's 15 minutes. Stroll at 2 mph and it's 30. Everything else on this page comes from one line:

time = distance ÷ speed

At 3 mph every mile takes 20 minutes, so 3 miles is an hour and 5 miles is 1 hour 40 minutes.

Counting in steps adds a stage, because the calculator has to work out how far your steps take you. That's where height comes in. At the same 3 mph, a 5′0″ woman finishes 10,000 steps in about 1 hour 18 minutes, while a 6′2″ man needs about 1 hour 37 minutes. He isn't slower. His longer steps simply cover more ground.

What is the average walking speed?

Most sources settle on about 3 mph, which is what we call average. The research backs that up. Bohannon and Andrews pooled 41 studies and more than 23,000 healthy adults in a 2011 meta-analysis. People in their 40s averaged 3.1 to 3.2 mph. Speed eases off from the 60s and reaches about 2.1 mph past age 80. The chart above has every age band.

There's a catch: those were short timed walks of 3 to 30 meters. Expect to go a little slower over several miles, when you've got a bag, a dog or a conversation to deal with.

What is a good walking pace?

For exercise, about 100 steps a minute is the rule of thumb for moderate intensity, according to a 2018 review in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. To check, count your steps for 15 seconds. If you get 25 or more, you're there.

For a 5′7″ adult, a normal 3 mph walk works out at about 114 steps a minute, so an ordinary purposeful walk clears the bar. A slow amble may not.

Allow for hills and stops

The calculator assumes a steady pace on flat ground with no breaks, so treat its answer as the time you'd need if nothing got in the way. Traffic lights, photos and coffee all add up.

For hills, walkers have used Naismith's rule since 1892: one hour for every 3 miles, plus 30 minutes for every 1,000 feet you climb. A 6-mile route with 1,500 feet of climbing comes to 2 hours 45 minutes. It's generally treated as a minimum, so add more for rough ground, a heavy pack or tired legs.

Very long walks need their own plan. A hundred miles is 33 hours 20 minutes of non-stop walking at 3 mph, so at 20 miles a day it's a five-day trip.

Find your own pace

Time yourself over a mile you know, at your usual speed. Four laps of a 400-meter track is close enough. Then divide 60 by your minutes to get your speed: an 18-minute mile is 3.3 mph. Pick Custom in the calculator and enter it, and every time on the page uses your own number.

Frequently asked questions