How long would it take to walk to the Moon?
About nine years if you never stopped, or 30 years at a walker's day of 35 km. The Moon is 384,400 km away on average. Nobody can walk there, but the arithmetic shows just how far it is, and how far the rest of the solar system is beyond it.
The numbers
384,400 km · 238,855.1 miles, in steps
| A child, 1.2 m (3 ft 11 in) | about 773,752,000 steps |
| 1.6 m (5 ft 3 in) | about 580,314,000 steps |
| 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in), the average adult | about 546,177,900 steps |
| 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) | about 515,834,700 steps |
| 1.9 m (6 ft 3 in) | about 488,685,500 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 | 4,004 days |
| A normal walk, 5 km/h | 3,203 days |
| A brisk walk, 6 km/h | 2,669 days |
Walking without stops, on level ground.
Calories, by body weight
| 55 kg (121 lb) | about 13,477,058 kcal (17,916,878 incl. resting) |
| 70 kg (154 lb) | about 17,152,619 kcal (22,803,299 incl. resting) |
| 85 kg (187 lb) | about 20,828,180 kcal (27,689,720 incl. resting) |
| 100 kg (220 lb) | about 24,503,741 kcal (32,576,141 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.
On a reTrek route
384,400 km is about 490 times the Camino de Santiago.
About the Camino de Santiago routeTry your own distance
Steps
about 546,177,900
491,560,100 to 600,795,700 depending on your stride, about 0.70 m a step at this height.
Distance
384,400.0 km · 238,855.1 miles
Time on foot
3,203 days
at 5 km/h, no stops
Calories
Depends on your weight more than anything else. Enter it to see an estimate.
That is about 490 times the Camino de Santiago.
How long would it take to walk to the Moon?
The Moon is 384,400 km (238,855 miles) from Earth on average, according to NASA. At a normal walking pace of 5 km/h, that is 76,880 hours on foot, or about 3,200 days, nearly nine years, if you walked every hour of every day without sleeping or stopping. At a long-distance walker’s day of about 35 km, the pace pilgrims and thru-hikers keep up for months, it would take about 11,000 days, a little over 30 years.
The Moon’s orbit isn’t a circle, so the distance changes. At its closest, about 363,300 km, the walk would save you about a year and a half at a walker’s pace. At its farthest, about 405,500 km, it adds about the same.
How many steps is it to the Moon?
About 546 million steps for an adult of average height. At 10,000 steps a day, that is 54,600 days, or about 150 years of ordinary walking. Even a determined walker would need several lifetimes.
How long would it take to walk around the Moon?
Much less. The Moon’s equator is about 10,921 km (6,786 miles) round, worked out from its equatorial radius of 1,738 km. That is about 91 days of non-stop walking, or about 312 days, under a year, at 35 km a day. Around the Moon is about a quarter of the way around the Earth.
And the rest of the solar system
| Destination | Distance from Earth | Walking non-stop at 5 km/h | At 35 km a day |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Moon (average) | 384,400 km (238,855 mi) | about 9 years | about 30 years |
| The Sun (average) | 149.6 million km (93 million mi) | about 3,400 years | about 11,700 years |
| Mars (at its closest) | 54.6 million km (34 million mi) | about 1,250 years | about 4,300 years |
| Pluto (at its closest) | 4,285 million km (2,662 million mi) | about 98,000 years | about 335,000 years |
Mars is a moving target: its distance from Earth swings between 54.6 million and 401.4 million km as the two planets orbit the Sun, so the walk to Mars would be more than seven times longer at the wrong moment. Distances are from NASA’s planetary fact sheets.
A goal for every walk
Walking is easy to skip when it leads nowhere in particular. 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: Moon fact sheet, NASA · Earth fact sheet, NASA · Mars fact sheet, NASA · Pluto fact sheet, NASA