How long does it take to walk 500 miles?
Five hundred miles is 805 km, almost exactly the length of the Camino Francés across northern Spain, which most pilgrims walk in 30 to 35 days.
The numbers
805 km · 500.0 miles, in steps
| A child, 1.2 m (3 ft 11 in) | about 1,619,700 steps |
| 1.6 m (5 ft 3 in) | about 1,214,800 steps |
| 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in), the average adult | about 1,143,300 steps |
| 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) | about 1,079,800 steps |
| 1.9 m (6 ft 3 in) | about 1,023,000 steps |
| A giraffe, 5.5 m (18 ft) | no idea, sorry |
Step length is about 41% of height. Give or take 10% for how you walk.
How long it takes to walk
| A stroll, 4 km/h | 8 days |
| A normal walk, 5 km/h | 7 days |
| A brisk walk, 6 km/h | 6 days |
Walking without stops, on level ground.
Calories, by body weight
| 55 kg (121 lb) | about 28,212 kcal (37,506 incl. resting) |
| 70 kg (154 lb) | about 35,906 kcal (47,735 incl. resting) |
| 85 kg (187 lb) | about 43,600 kcal (57,963 incl. resting) |
| 100 kg (220 lb) | about 51,294 kcal (68,192 incl. resting) |
The walk's own cost at 5 km/h. The second number adds what you would have burned sitting still, which is what some fitness trackers show.
Try your own distance
Steps
about 1,143,300
1,029,000 to 1,257,700 depending on your stride, about 0.70 m a step at this height.
Distance
804.7 km · 500.0 miles
Time on foot
7 days
at 5 km/h, no stops
Calories
Depends on your weight more than anything else. Enter it to see an estimate.
That is the whole way to Camino de Santiago.
How long does it take to walk 500 miles?
Walking time alone is about 161 hours at a normal pace of 5 km/h (3.1 mph), 134 at a brisk 6 km/h and 201 at a stroll of 4 km/h. Nobody walks that without sleeping, so the real answer is in days: at 20 to 25 km a day, it takes five to six weeks. At 20 km (12 miles) a day it is about 40 days, at 25 km (16 miles) about 32. Five hundred miles is 805 km, almost exactly the length of the Camino Francés across northern Spain, which most pilgrims walk in 30 to 35 days.
Does age change it?
Yes, but less than people expect. A meta-analysis of 41 studies and 23,111 healthy adults measured normal walking speed by decade: the fastest group, men in their forties, averaged 1.43 m/s, which is a mile in about 19 minutes, and the slowest, women over eighty, averaged 0.94 m/s, about 28 minutes a mile. Everyone in between is within that band. Over 500 miles, that difference adds up to days, so pick a daily distance that suits your own pace.
How many steps is 500 miles?
About 1,143,300 for an adult of average height, from about 1,023,000 at 1.9 m to 1,214,800 at 1.6 m. Walked over a month at 25 km a day, that is about 35,000 steps a day, the rhythm of a long-distance pilgrim.
How many calories does walking 500 miles burn?
About 35,905 kcal for a 70 kg (154 lb) adult at a normal pace, from roughly 28,210 kcal at 55 kg (121 lb) to 51,295 kcal at 100 kg (220 lb). Weight decides most of it, pace barely matters between 4 and 6 km/h on the flat, and that is the walk’s own cost above sitting still. Some fitness trackers add the resting share and come out about a third higher.
A goal for every walk
Walking is easy to skip when it leads nowhere in particular. reTrek gives your walks a finish line: pick a famous route, like the Camino de Santiago or the Inca Trail, and every walk moves you further along it, with a short film about the place waiting at each milestone. You stop looking for a spare moment to walk and start walking to reach the next milestone.
Walk it with a friend and pool your steps, or race them there. Everest Base Camp is free. Get reTrek.
Other distances
Sources: Normal walking speed, a descriptive meta-analysis, Bohannon and Williams Andrews, Physiotherapy, 2011 · Energy expenditure during level human walking, Ludlow and Weyand, Journal of Applied Physiology, 2016