How long would it take to walk to the moon?

The Moon is about 238,900 miles from Earth on average. If there were somehow a road all the way there and you walked 20 miles every day without missing a day, the trip would take about 33 years.

At a steady walking speed of roughly 3 miles per hour without ever stopping, the pure travel time would be a little over 9 years. Neither scenario is physically possible, of course—the distance is useful as a thought experiment for showing just how far away the Moon actually is.

If you walked 20 miles every single day, it would still take about 33 years to reach the Moon. You’d leave in your twenties with good knees and arrive in your fifties furious that nobody mentioned there was no return trip. Still less time than it takes some people to leave IKEA. At least the Moon has an exit you can see.

Three-panel comic showing the same person aging from their twenties into their fifties during an imagined 33-year walk toward the Moon, then reacting to the prospect of the return trip.

This is the kind of question that pops into your head when you're bored and looking up at the night sky — it feels close enough to touch, so why not? There's a weird psychological thing where the Moon seems closer than it is because we can see it. People are usually shocked to learn that you could drive across the entire United States and back multiple times before covering the Moon distance.

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· · 1 min read · Space

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