How many miles does the average person walk a day?

Most people walk much less in a day than they think, and much less than they could. Here is what the largest measurement of real walking found, what that is in miles, and how far a person can walk in a day when walking is the point.

The short answer

The average person walks about 2 miles (3.5 km) a day. The largest study of real step counts, from 717,527 smartphone users in 111 countries, put the world average at 4,961 steps a day, which is about 2.2 miles (3.5 km) for an adult of average height. That counts every step of the day, not just walks. A fit walker on a trail can cover 15 to 20 miles (25 to 30 km) in a day.

The average, measured

The figure comes from a 2017 study in Nature (Althoff and colleagues), which analysed 68 million days of step data from the phones of 717,527 people. Phones only count steps when they are carried, so the real average is probably a little higher, but it is the largest measurement of how much people actually walk.

In miles and km, 4,961 steps is about:

Height	Distance
155 cm (5 ft 1 in)	2.0 miles, 3.2 km
170 cm (5 ft 7 in)	2.2 miles, 3.5 km
185 cm (6 ft 1 in)	2.4 miles, 3.8 km

The study also found that averages hide big gaps between people. Within each country, activity was spread unevenly, and that inequality predicted obesity rates better than the average amount of activity did. Cities that were easier to walk in had more activity across the board.

How does that compare with what’s recommended?

The world average sits below the range where the big step studies find most of the benefit. A 2025 review (Ding and colleagues) found that 7,000 steps a day, against 2,000, went with a 47% lower risk of dying during the studies, with the benefit for several outcomes flattening around 5,000 to 7,000 steps. In miles, 7,000 steps is about 3 miles (5 km) for an adult of average height. Our guide to how many miles you should walk a day has the detail.

How far can a person walk in a day?

Much further than the average. At an average pace of about 5 km/h (3.1 mph), distance is mostly a matter of hours:

Hours of walking	Distance at 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
1 hour	5 km (3.1 miles)
2 hours	10 km (6.2 miles)
4 hours	20 km (12.4 miles)
6 hours	30 km (18.6 miles)
8 hours	40 km (24.9 miles)

The limit is less about legs than about feet, time and recovery. On long-distance trails, people settle into a pace they can repeat day after day: on the Camino de Santiago, most pilgrims cover 22 to 26 km (14 to 16 miles) a day, with fast walkers doing around 30 km (19 miles). One long day is possible for many people. The same distance every day for weeks takes building up to. See how long the Camino takes for the trail version of the maths.

Walking more than average

Going from the average to 7,000 steps a day is about a mile more a day, around 20 minutes of walking. Small changes get there: walking during calls, a walk after dinner, the long way round. We collected the practical ones in how to get more steps in a day.

A goal for every walk

The hard part of walking more is not the walking. It is having a reason to go out today. 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. Instead of fitting in a walk for its own sake, you walk to reach the next milestone.

Everest Base Camp is free. Get reTrek.