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Exercise by Walking the Whole Airport During Your Layover

Exercise by Walking the Whole Airport During Your Layover
Credit: Tomas Williams

Airports are enormous (in big cities, anyway), and that’s often what we hate about them. Baggage claim is how far away?? But if you’ve got time to kill, consider using the airport’s vastness to your advantage. Walk the whole damn thing, and time yourself.

That’s what sleep specialist Chris Winter recently did, traversing the whole Philadelphia airport in just over an hour at a brisk 15:44 pace. He told us via DM that he does this in other airports too, even challenging others to beat his time:

Dr. Winter says he started doing airport walks just to get in his daily steps. “Because I travel a ton, there were days where my only chance to exercise was on a layover,” he says. Then he discovered that the resulting maps (if you use a fitness tracker) look pretty awesome. If you’d like to try the challenge his way, Dr. Winter suggests the following rules:

  1. No running. No other airport traveler or staff person should be able to know you are doing it. Subtle.

  2. Must start and end at the same place. It’s a loop, not one end to the other.

  3. Bags come with. No locker bullshit.

  4. No shuttles, but motorized walkways are absolutely allowed (although they can backfire when crowded).

The rule about motorized walkways seems ripe for controversy, but he says they’re “like some power up item in Mario Kart.”

Whether you speedwalk your airport or just go for a low-key stroll, walking the whole thing sounds like a great way to get in some exercise and stave off boredom while you wait for your flight to depart.