When walking in areas I know well enough to navigate without a map, I default to taking turns either as early or late as possible. Pure laziness. If I take a turn early I don't need to remember to take it later, if I take it late I don't have to think about taking the turn until there's nothing else to do.
Works great in gridded areas where all routes are roughly the same. But, there's better heuristics out there. A couple seconds of thought can result in a much better walking experience, in all its various forms.
- Speed. Even for a given start and end point, the fastest route depends on crosswalk cycles and traffic. If the crosswalk is on and it doesn't matter where you turn, you may as well take it.
- Length. Not the same thing as speed. Sometimes I have energy which needs burning off, sometimes I'm running early and want a way to stall without waiting. Occasionally, I'm not in the mood to arrive just yet.
- Elevation. There's no shame in choosing to walk around a hill instead of up it.
- Autopilotability. Few intersections, obvious cues for turns, minimal traffic. Good for relaxing or multitasking. I've read so many books while walking on a road with 20 minutes of straight sidewalk and no intersections.
- Pedestrian infrastructure quality. There are crosswalks I avoid solely because they have worse buttons and intersections with infuriating long light cycles. Even when they're technically better on another metric, they feel worse.
- Safety. Overlaps with infrastructure, but also includes how busy and well lit the area is. I prefer side roads during the day and main roads at night.
- Shelter. Cover from rain, shady trees, areas with less bugs. Highly seasonal, it doesn't matter until it really does.
- Experience. Pleasant views, good smells, less noise, nostalgic locations. Some places are nicer than others somehow.
- Novelty. Take a turn somewhere just because you haven't before. It's fun to see new things and it's helpful to go scouting.
- Serendipity. I've had some of the best nights of my life because I ran into someone on the busy route instead of taking the fast one.
You don't have to consider any of these if you don't want to, but you can probably do better than your current heuristics, whatever they are.
- Rew
Nightly Notes
One of my minor gripes with map apps is that they make it harder to get to the point where you can make educated routing decisions. I precondition this entire post on being in an area you're already familiar with. Blindly following instructions disincentivizes you from paying attention.
It's so much more enjoyable to be able to do it yourself without a second thought, spend energy on something you care about (even if it's staring at your phone) instead of double-checking directions.
- Rew