San Francisco

I am in San Francisco for a conference followed by a couple days in the Sonoma wine country. When I am in a big city I am often amazed at the level of fitness the people seem to have. Now maybe it's a biased eye at work, but I don't think it's entirely that based on the fact that I'm walking...a lot.

There's just no other way of getting places in town cheaply and quickly. Taxi's are expensive and often by the time you've waited for a bus or train you could be most of the way there. I think anything over a 1/1.5 miles (1.6/2.4 km) I start looking for a ride, but even then there's so much going on in town that walking is easily distracted.

This is in contrast to living in the suburbs. In the 'burbs I drive nearly everywhere. My car is at my beck and call so even the 0.3 miles (0.5 km) to the grocery store is a more convenient drive. Particularly, when there are kids at home who leave my time limited. This may well be an understated reason for the obesity issues in the country.

What's a SF blog without a Lombard Street pic?

Digressing, the one challenge of SF is the hills. It is by no means a flat town. In fact it is defined by its hills. This has resulted in working up a small sweat here and there while getting around town. It doesn't take long to learn to walk perpendicular to the hill and picking your ups and downs.

Regardless, I've been racking up 15,000 ish steps each day and have been feeling plenty good just walking around town. It helps that my conference is 0.5 miles (0.8 km) from the hotel. Making for a nice stroll in the morning, stopping for coffee and a bite along the way.