What is The Walk?
Walk Around Philadelphia invites people to experience the city by walking its edges.
Over time, it brings neighbors from across the region together into facilitated walking experiences that circumnavigate the entire border of Philadelphia.
Rather than approaching Philadelphia from its center, the Walk follows the city’s margins — where we encounter wild natural landscapes alongside shipyards, rail corridors, and other working infrastructure.
Walk Around Philadelphia offers two cycles of walks every February and September, with other programs throughout the year.
Participants are welcome to join for a partial segment, several segments, or a full cycle of walks as they are able.
Others choose to sign up for a self-guided (DIY) version of the Walk and connect back with the growing community of perimeter-walkers through in-person and virtual events, discussion forums, and by sharing stories and reflections.
Not a guided tour.
Not a fixed path.
The Walk is not a guided tour, and it does not follow a single fixed route. Instead, it is a collective wayfinding practice — a shared process of navigating the city’s edge together.
Facilitators help us remember our guidelines and explore our boundaries safely, while the path itself is responsive as each group makes choices together. Detours are not mistakes; they are opportunities for learning and discovery.
Over time, this collective adventure traces a complete loop around the city — not as a prescribed itinerary, but as an evolving relationship to place.
What we encounter along the way
Walking the city’s margins reveals a wide and often unexpected range of places. Depending on the segment and choices made, participants may pass through or alongside:
- farms and community gardens
- environmental and nature centers
- parks, rivers, creeks, and other bodies of water
- Superfund toxic waste sites
- cemeteries and historic burial grounds
- schools, universities, and libraries
- recreation and community centers
- public art installations including the city’s largest mural
- shipyards, marine terminals, and rail corridors
- water treatment plants and waste management sites
- detention centers & prisons, police & firefighter training facilities
- Philadelphia International Airport and other major infrastructure
These places are not destinations to be checked off, but contexts to be noticed and experienced — spaces where natural systems, civic life, history, and industry overlap.
No Two Walks Are the Same
Each walking experience is unique. The Walk is shaped by season, weather, time of day, direction of travel, and who is present. No two segments unfold in quite the same way.
Participants encounter both the familiar and the surprising — expected landscapes that reveal something new, and unexpected moments that open fresh questions. What emerges is a shared experience shaped by place, timing, and the people walking together.
Where to next?
If you’re curious to learn more, there are a couple of natural places to continue:
Explore the values, questions, and perspectives that guide this project, and why walking the city’s edges matters.
Learn what participation looks like in practice — including pace, facilitation, group size, care, and flexibility.
