Why do locals give such bad walking directions?
Locals often confuse walking times with driving times or underestimate distances, leading travelers on exhausting, multi-hour detours. Misleading advice about public transit schedules also leaves people stranded or walking in completely wrong directions.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1using smartphone mapsDid this help you?
- 2double-checking instructions or taking nothing for grantedDid this help you?
- 3relying on dual language mapsDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Just realized I walked about three hours in the wrong direction because a guy at the coffee shop told me it was a quick shortcut.”source ↗
“After nearly a 90 min walk in 35°c Greek heat, he arrived. The guy meant 10 minutes by car”source ↗
“A local once told me the bus “comes all the time,” which apparently meant twice a day if the moon was right.”source ↗
Where this came up
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