500 meters. If the store were at 3km I'd bike there, not walk. I feel like 500m is still an okay walking distance, but at some point I regularly went to a store 800m away and I already preferred to bike there. Walking 3km is definitely a bit of a time investment

I live in the pedestrian zone of a semi large German city. There's three grocery stores within pissing distance.

My last flat was a little more remote in comparison but still nowhere near 3km to the next store. I wouldn't be willing to walk that far for groceries tbh. I enjoy taking walks but not with a shitload of food I have to haul all the way home. That's a cycling or public transport route for me.

If I was you I'd take a large hiking backpack or rolling suitcase, walk to the store an hour ahead and then ride the bus back home.

For me it’s either 600m to a small corner shop or about 1.1km to a larger store.

I do 3km periodically for another store, but I wouldn’t do it in 30c weather. I’m barely willing to exercise in 25c weather.

I'm in Vienna, Austria. I have 5 supermarkets and 3 pharmacys in a 10 minute walking radius.

That's cycling distance. A nice bike ride to pickup shopping.

In Norway. Technically in a city, but it's very rural. About 30 minutes of walking with a descent of ~150 meters. Carrying groceries back up that hill is a big test of stamina, so we very rarely do it. We mostly drive to the store.

Your friend is full of shit. 3km is a very long distance for walking to get groceries, and I can imagine that you have to deprioritize heavier groceries all the time due to that distance. I'd recommend getting a bike or electic scooter or something to cover that distance. Basically no one in Norway would have 3km to their nearest store with walking as their only option.

400m, or 500 in the other direction.

BUT: no one around here would walk 3km. Hell, most people won't even walk the 500m.

My day to day shopping is 600-800m away.

My specialty store is 1.1km.

3km is a bit too far for me.

The most I've ever willing walked for groceries is 1.5km

My closest supermarket is 400m away, and the next supermarket over is 1.1km. I walk there daily, sometimes multiple times a day. 3km is quite far and I would not consider that walking distance.

It's certainly possible to walk that distance once every (couple of) months, if I did not have my bike available for whatever reason? But I would consider regularly walking 40 minutes one way every other day to be far too much. That distance is cycling distance, not walking distance.

On a side-note. Did you just say that the bus arrives only once every four hours? My lord.. It might as well basically not exist at that point.

I live in Berlin. I can go shopping for groceries, head back home, cook a meal using those groceries and eat within one hour of home office lunch break.

My usual place is 250m from my home, or around 3 minutes walking. There's like another 5 supermarkets, 5 bakeries, 4 greengrocers and 3 butchers about 500 meters away (off the top of my head, there could be more).

I have a small shop with basics and a seasonal farm stand about 400 meters from me and I walk that for anything I need from there, or another larger but still small shop another 300m past the first one. But selection is limited.

There's a gross supermarket about 2km away, and I wouldn't object to walking that, but I don't think I ever have. In the same amount of time I could drive 4km to the good supermarket or large green market and get better products. I regularly go for 5-7km runs, often past the gross supermarket, so it's more so that if I need something from a supermarket, I would rather do a full shopping trip, or stop at the store or market on the way home from work.

The closest grocery store/supermarket is around 1km away from my house and a few others are just slightly further away. I could walk there, but I have better ways to use my time, so I just go with my bike.

The pannier bags also enable me to buy heavy stuff without having to lift it the whole way.

My day to day walking to grocery stores is something like one kilometer. Bus goes every ten or fifteen minutes near my home. I don’t like biking that’s why I decided to walk. Every now and then I walk to the city, which is 5 km from my home, I don’t think it’s too far, but if I go to shopping there I usually come back with a bus.

200 meters

Outskirts of Budapest, closest supermarket is bit more than 1.5 km, so I did my daily shopping when I walked the dog. I would guess 45 min round trip.

People in this thread seems to live near big cities, which isn't really representative of the whole european population.

I live in rural france, the closest grocery store since I was born is 20km away (20min drive, no bus), and I moved 3 times - still about 20km.

Lots of people I know would love a store to be 3km away

Even fairly rural Europeans will consider that to be at least cycling distance.

I have four supermarkets in a radius of about 500 metres. Not only do I regularly walk, I pretty much buy only what I need for a few days, safe in the knowledge that if I need something now, I can be out & back in under half an hour, also knowing that most supermarkets here are reliably stocked with just what I need.

NYC. I walk a round trip of 3k for groceries twice a week. Not unusual to walk 5k per day.

I live close to the central area of an ~80,000 population city.

Looking at Google maps I've got about 10 general stores within 300 meters, probably thrice that within 500m, plus plenty of smaller specialised stores.

300 to 600m seems like a reasonable distance to walk to and back with four to six bags of groceries.

For smaller more specialised shopping trips one or two kilometres would be fine too.

Three might be a bit much, though I've often walked that to go to the cinema.

3 Km is what? A half hour walk? I've lived in multiple European countries in my life and never been that far from a supermarket.

I mean, I definitely have walked that much daily. My longest walk to work I can remember was maybe 40 minutes. In some places where I'd take public transportation for like 20-30 min I've walked for an hour when I felt like it instead.

For groceries I don't think I'd take that with me that far walking unless it could go in my backpack. But seriously, if you don't have a shop in that radius around you in Europe you need a car anyway because you're out in the middle of nowhere.

But also, in European supermarkets you can normally get big grocery hauls delivered that far away. Just go there, buy your stuff, pay, book a delivery. Lots of old people who can't carry heavy weights do it. They still go to the shop, though.

About 200 meters, but I usually take the bike down to the Lidl 1 km away.

Where I last lived I had 200 meters to a small shop and 3.5 km to the local Lidl, which was fine but not ideal.

Getting a bike with a rack might be a good idea for your grocery runs. 3 km is less than 10 minutes on a bike.

50 meters

Hunter-gatherers used to forage in a radius up to 10k 😁

The closest one to me is about 1km, I walk there if I don't have to get too much stuff. 3km? I don't know. In nice weather maybe, if I'm not in a hurry.

6km, I drive ..

About 1km one-way. I usually walk

Aussie, but the strip with a butcher, grocer and IGA is about 60m away, if i want more supermarkety goods i'll hop on my pushbike or walk the 1.4km to Europa

I have shop few meters away from my home, but I only go there, when I forgot to buy something or just quickly need snacks for a movie or it's bad weather, but usually I just buy everything from other grocery store which is 2 km away, but I like their food selection more and they got cheaper prices. Sometimes I also walk to big supermarket which is 4 km away.

3 km doesn't seem much for me or most of my friends,some of them even own a car and still walk 2-4 km to the grocery shop, instead of driving, but some people I know, would rather drive a car or take a bus.

We have two supermarkets within five minutes walking distance, if you make it ten minutes, it's four.

Also within ten minutes walking distance are two middle schools, a primary school, and two kindergardens, several doctors and apothecaries, several shops, and the central bus station.

The latter is a bit of an disappointment, as not only the bus service is low frequency, and it takes an hour+ to the city.

900m. I live at the edge of town...

Used to be 5km where I grew up in the Netherlands, nowadays living in Germany it's 1km but uphill (don't have those in NL!). In either case I don't want to walk it and there's not a chance I would if it's 30 degrees out: that temperature means it's probably in a month of the year where I burn within 10-20 minutes. I'd have to put on sunscreen for going to the store! They better have a sandy beach aisle

80 meters lol. I've lived in cities, where it's always been less than 700 meters.

As a european, it takes me 8 minutes to walk to a supermarket, though i use a bicycle

Nearest grocery store is 100m away. Nearest supermarket is 850m (just cheched). I walked to the supermarket moments ago, bought grocery and brought it back all in less than 1 hour. I wouldn't do it with 30 degrees in the middle of the day though. If there were no sidewalks and I had to make a 6km round trip to get groceries, I would invest in the cheapest electric bike possible.