Explore the edge
Short walks, medium walks, and full-day perimeter segments — with our groups or on your own!
Connect & Gather
Events, exhibitions, forums, story-sharing, and celebrations — you don’t have to walk to be part of it.
Collaborate
Schools, organizations, journalists, cultural partners & civic leaders — let’s explore what’s possible together.
Why the edge?
Walking the perimeter invites us to see Philadelphia from its margins rather than its center — noticing waterways, industry, neighborhoods, ecosystems, and the boundaries that shape everyday life. There’s something powerful about circumnavigating a place — tracing the whole outline, step by step — that deepens our relationship to it and to one another.
Over time, Walk Around Philadelphia is growing into a kind of regional pilgrimage — a shared cultural practice with the potential to connect people across the city and beyond.
A practice of care
Walk Around Philadelphia isn’t a guided tour or a fixed route — it’s a shared wayfinding practice grounded in curiosity, presence, mutual care, safety and respect for all.
-> Guidelines & Safety
Stories from the edge
Want to see & hear what it looks like to walk all the way around Philly’s furthest margins? Check out some of our stories… or send us yours!
-> Stories from the walk
Be part of the journey
Walk Around Philadelphia is growing into a long-term civic practice — connecting people across the region through shared exploration of the city’s edges.
-> History & Roadmap
Growing a shared practice — together
Over the past decade, Walk Around Philadelphia has grown from a small artist-led experiment into a citywide cultural practice — with thousands of participants, expanding partnerships, and a long-term vision for a future where:
- every young person has the opportunity to walk the city’s edge as part of experiential learning programs or as a graduation ritual
- arriving college/grad students and other new residents use the Walk to connect to place and community
- long-term residents use the walk to rediscover and find new wonder in the place they’ve always called home
- citizens returning from incarceration have the opportunity to use the walk as a transition ritual while earning stipends to support their reentry and walking alongside social service providers & prospective employers
- people of all backgrounds can participate through stipend support, and accessibility initiatives
- the Walk becomes a regional pilgrimage tradition that reconnects us to one another and to the land & water that hold the city
Building this vision takes time, care, and community support.
If the Walk resonates with you, we invite you to help sustain and expand this work.
-> Collaborate
Ready to walk with us?
Join a walk.
Set out on your own.
Or simply come say hello.