I was talking to a friend and complaining that the nearest grocery store is 3km from me, he says that Europeans consider that a reasonable distance to the store and I’m just being lazy.
I don’t have a car, I don’t have a bike, and the bus only comes by every four hours. Am I being unreasonable for not wanting to carry groceries 3km in 30C weather, or is my friend full of shit? Neither of us have been to Europe.
1km, 12 minutes walking
The closest supermarket is 6km away. I either walk or cycle 1k to the bus stop or all the way by ebike. The way home is super steep, otherwise i would probably take the normal bike. It’s nice, because i can go all the way without touching an asphalt road.
I’m not really a European but I’m close enough I guess (Turkish). The closest supermarket to me is less than a hundred meters away, with 3 others available in a 250m radius around my home.
3km walk in this weather sounds like hell to be honest. You could use a grocery delivery service though if you have one available in your country.
Even fairly rural Europeans will consider that to be at least cycling distance.
I have four supermarkets in a radius of about 500 metres. Not only do I regularly walk, I pretty much buy only what I need for a few days, safe in the knowledge that if I need something now, I can be out & back in under half an hour, also knowing that most supermarkets here are reliably stocked with just what I need.
My usual place is 250m from my home, or around 3 minutes walking. There’s like another 5 supermarkets, 5 bakeries, 4 greengrocers and 3 butchers about 500 meters away (off the top of my head, there could be more).
About 1km one-way. I usually walk
Used to be 5km where I grew up in the Netherlands, nowadays living in Germany it’s 1km but uphill (don’t have those in NL!). In either case I don’t want to walk it and there’s not a chance I would if it’s 30 degrees out: that temperature means it’s probably in a month of the year where I burn within 10-20 minutes. I’d have to put on sunscreen for going to the store! They better have a sandy beach aisle
6km, I drive …
Outskirts of Budapest, closest supermarket is bit more than 1.5 km, so I did my daily shopping when I walked the dog. I would guess 45 min round trip.
The closest one to me is about 1km, I walk there if I don’t have to get too much stuff. 3km? I don’t know. In nice weather maybe, if I’m not in a hurry.
People in this thread seems to live near big cities, which isn’t really representative of the whole european population.
I live in rural france, the closest grocery store since I was born is 20km away (20min drive, no bus), and I moved 3 times - still about 20km.
Lots of people I know would love a store to be 3km away
My girlfriend lives in a rural area. When we go groceries we consider it an outdoor activity. It’s like 4km away from her house
I have a small shop with basics and a seasonal farm stand about 400 meters from me and I walk that for anything I need from there, or another larger but still small shop another 300m past the first one. But selection is limited.
There’s a gross supermarket about 2km away, and I wouldn’t object to walking that, but I don’t think I ever have. In the same amount of time I could drive 4km to the good supermarket or large green market and get better products. I regularly go for 5-7km runs, often past the gross supermarket, so it’s more so that if I need something from a supermarket, I would rather do a full shopping trip, or stop at the store or market on the way home from work.
I live in Berlin. I can go shopping for groceries, head back home, cook a meal using those groceries and eat within one hour of home office lunch break.
The closest grocery store/supermarket is around 1km away from my house and a few others are just slightly further away. I could walk there, but I have better ways to use my time, so I just go with my bike.
The pannier bags also enable me to buy heavy stuff without having to lift it the whole way.
My day to day walking to grocery stores is something like one kilometer. Bus goes every ten or fifteen minutes near my home. I don’t like biking that’s why I decided to walk. Every now and then I walk to the city, which is 5 km from my home, I don’t think it’s too far, but if I go to shopping there I usually come back with a bus.
