How long does it take to walk 15 miles?
Fifteen miles is 24.1 km, about a long day on a walking trail, and close to the daily distance of a pilgrim on the Camino de Santiago, where most people cover 22 to 26 km a day.
The numbers
24.1 km · 15.0 miles, in steps
| A child, 1.2 m (3 ft 11 in) | about 48,600 steps |
| 1.6 m (5 ft 3 in) | about 36,400 steps |
| 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in), the average adult | about 34,300 steps |
| 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) | about 32,400 steps |
| 1.9 m (6 ft 3 in) | about 30,700 steps |
| A giraffe, 5.5 m (18 ft) | no idea, sorry |
Step length is about 41% of height. Give or take 10% for how you walk.
How long it takes to walk
| A stroll, 4 km/h | 6 h 2 min |
| A normal walk, 5 km/h | 4 h 50 min |
| A brisk walk, 6 km/h | 4 h 1 min |
Walking without stops, on level ground.
Calories, by body weight
| 55 kg (121 lb) | about 846 kcal (1,125 incl. resting) |
| 70 kg (154 lb) | about 1,077 kcal (1,432 incl. resting) |
| 85 kg (187 lb) | about 1,308 kcal (1,739 incl. resting) |
| 100 kg (220 lb) | about 1,539 kcal (2,046 incl. resting) |
The walk's own cost at 5 km/h. The second number adds what you would have burned sitting still, which is what some fitness trackers show.
Try your own distance
Steps
about 34,300
30,900 to 37,700 depending on your stride, about 0.70 m a step at this height.
Distance
24.1 km · 15.0 miles
Time on foot
4 h 50 min
at 5 km/h, no stops
Calories
Depends on your weight more than anything else. Enter it to see an estimate.
That is 2/5 of the way to Everest Base Camp.
How long does it take to walk 15 miles?
About 4 hours 50 minutes at a normal pace of 5 km/h (3.1 mph), 4 hours 1 minutes at a brisk 6 km/h, 6 hours 2 minutes at a stroll of 4 km/h. Those are level-ground figures without a single stop, so plan on six hours with stops. Fifteen miles is 24.1 km, about a long day on a walking trail, and close to the daily distance of a pilgrim on the Camino de Santiago, where most people cover 22 to 26 km a day.
Does age change it?
Yes, but less than people expect. A meta-analysis of 41 studies and 23,111 healthy adults measured normal walking speed by decade: the fastest group, men in their forties, averaged 1.43 m/s, which is a mile in about 19 minutes, and the slowest, women over eighty, averaged 0.94 m/s, about 28 minutes a mile. Everyone in between is within that band. Over 15 miles, that difference adds up to hours, so pick a daily distance that suits your own pace.
How many steps is 15 miles?
About 34,300 for an adult of average height, from about 30,700 at 1.9 m to 36,400 at 1.6 m. That is a very long day of steps, well into the top “highly active” tier of step research, and about what the average person walks in a whole week.
How many calories does walking 15 miles burn?
About 1,075 kcal for a 70 kg (154 lb) adult at a normal pace, from roughly 845 kcal at 55 kg (121 lb) to 1,540 kcal at 100 kg (220 lb). Weight decides most of it, pace barely matters between 4 and 6 km/h on the flat, and that is the walk’s own cost above sitting still. Some fitness trackers add the resting share and come out about a third higher.
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. The walk you would have skipped becomes the one that gets you to the next milestone.
Walk it with a friend and pool your steps, or race them there. Everest Base Camp is free. Get reTrek.
Other distances
Sources: Normal walking speed, a descriptive meta-analysis, Bohannon and Williams Andrews, Physiotherapy, 2011 · Energy expenditure during level human walking, Ludlow and Weyand, Journal of Applied Physiology, 2016