So I walked to Philadelphia, from Brooklyn. It took three days in all. I was mostly curious whether it could be done, and it can.
I did it in three days. I knew from prior experience that I can log 20-25 miles of walking in a day without any major problems, so I figured I could do a bit more, could probably do it three days in a row, and could probably do it with a backpack of under 20 pounds.
On the first and longest day, I started early and walked from home up Flatbush Ave., turning at Tillary to catch the pedestrian path over the Brooklyn Bridge. I picked up a bagel and then a ferry to Belford, NJ. I had read about people taking the only pedestrian bridge to New Jersey—the George Washington Bridge out of Washington Heights—but getting that far north and then coming back down south through the Palisades, Newark and such adds at least another day to the process. The ferry terminal in Belford is a curious beast: it is in the middle of nowhere but it was full of young professionals in nice clothing heading to work. I walked for a few hours through a mix of “nowhere” and some nice-looking suburbs until I hit a diner, where I paused for lunch. I then continued west, which was mostly exurban, until I hit I-95 and the eastern edge of the borough of Cranbury, where there is a small cluster of motels. The last few hours were not easy on my morale: rain, which wasn’t really in the forecast, started and then became more intense until there was even some distant thunder. I packed rain gear, but it wasn’t easy on my morale, and there were a few places where I was walking along the shoulder of a relatively busy road. I checked into the motel, showered, consumed water and electrolytes to relieve my spasming calves, and ate a hotel lobby Cobb salad, then went to bed. Day 1: 30 miles.
The next day, I stretched (and took a dip in the motel pool), surrounded the worst blister with moleskin, and headed out. I stopped in the very cute town of Cranbury for brunch at a diner. From there, it was a few miles of office parks, some farmland, and then nice suburbs where I had some shade. Eventually, I got to the outskirts of Hamilton, an urban area near Trenton, and then walked through the south side of Trenton itself, crossing over into Pennsylvania on the bridge with the “TRENTON MAKES THE WORLD TAKES” sign. At that point, my legs were pretty tired, but I still had a long way to go and was running out of daylight, having started later than planned. The next stretch was almost all on the Delaware & Lehigh towpath, which still exists even though the canal has been covered over with various causeways for roads and highways. Parts held water, others were just muddy banks, but the whole thing was a pretty nice path, mostly forested. At some point, there was no more light (I’d started out later than planned), but the path was clear and nobody else was around. Eventually, this dead-ended into the Bristol Pike, where I stopped at the second motel. I ended up just eating some snacks and water before bed. Day 2: 27 miles.
I started off with a healthy breakfast (they exist) at Wawa, and then continued down the Pike until I hit Philadelphia city limits. Philadelphia managed to annex its northeastern suburbs in the mid-19th century and so it stretches many miles to the northeast of Center City, and the Pike becomes Frankford Ave. This part was the only portion that had any hills to speak of. After another Wawa meal (this one less healthy) I continued into Kensington and Port Richmond, as the temperature and humidity rose. These neighborhoods have never been wealthy to my knowledge, and they are undeclared drug amnesty zones, and there was a really sad amount of human suffering on display; it’s hard to look at. At this point, I was really in a lot of pain between my tight hips, blisters, and my arches, and I needed drinking water to cope with the heat, but there was simply nowhere I felt comfortable stopping for several miles, until I finally hit the edge of Fishtown. Since I was still on schedule, I stopped to rest for about an hour at Atlantis, The Lost Bar, probably the northeastern-most bar I used to go to when I lived in Philly, and then from there, continued down Frankford Ave. until Girard. From there, I zigzagged a bit to Chinatown. There, I got the shaved noodles at Nan Zhou (highly recommended), took a photo at City Hall, and then finally arrived at 30th St. Station, where I caught the Keystone Line train back to New York. Day 3: 23 miles.