Orlando · Guide
Seven to ten miles a day, in the heat, in shoes you bought for the trip
The average theme park guest walks between seven and ten miles a day. Fifteen to twenty five thousand steps is typical, and people who park hop regularly clear twenty five thousand. One loop of the World Showcase alone is about a mile and a bit. Across a five day trip that is somewhere between thirty five and fifty miles.
That is more than a marathon, done in Florida heat, usually in shoes bought for the holiday, by people who do not walk that far in a normal week.
It is not the distance, it is the surface and the stopping
Miles on flat concrete with no camber and no variation loads exactly the same structures with every step. Add long stationary queues in between, where you stand still rather than walk, and you get the worst of both: no recovery from the walking and no relief from the standing.
Standing still is genuinely harder on a back than moving.
- In a queue, shift your weight deliberately and often. Change which leg is taking more.
- Sit down for the parade you do not care about. That is what it is for.
- Break new shoes in at home first. Even a couple of hours. Almost nobody does it and it is the single best thing on this list.
Heat
Heat brings fatigue forward, and tired walking is sloppier walking. By late afternoon your stride has changed whether you noticed or not, which is when ankles roll on a kerb.
The travel day at the end
The classic mistake is a full day of sitting straight after several days of the opposite: a car, a flight, another car. Walk before you fly. Stand up on the plane once.
When it is worth talking to somebody
Sore feet and legs that fade over a few days are exactly what should happen. Worth a conversation with a qualified provider: pain that is sharp rather than stiff, anything travelling down a leg, a rolled ankle still swollen after a few days, or anything not improving at all by the end of the week.
If you actually fell, get it looked at, even if it was funny at the time.
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