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.

500 meters. If the store were at 3km I'd bike there, not walk. I feel like 500m is still an okay walking distance, but at some point I regularly went to a store 800m away and I already preferred to bike there. Walking 3km is definitely a bit of a time investment

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.

In Norway. Technically in a city, but it's very rural. About 30 minutes of walking with a descent of ~150 meters. Carrying groceries back up that hill is a big test of stamina, so we very rarely do it. We mostly drive to the store.

Your friend is full of shit. 3km is a very long distance for walking to get groceries, and I can imagine that you have to deprioritize heavier groceries all the time due to that distance. I'd recommend getting a bike or electic scooter or something to cover that distance. Basically no one in Norway would have 3km to their nearest store with walking as their only option.

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).

I'm in Vienna, Austria. I have 5 supermarkets and 3 pharmacys in a 10 minute walking radius.

That's cycling distance. A nice bike ride to pickup shopping.

I live in the pedestrian zone of a semi large German city. There's three grocery stores within pissing distance.

My last flat was a little more remote in comparison but still nowhere near 3km to the next store. I wouldn't be willing to walk that far for groceries tbh. I enjoy taking walks but not with a shitload of food I have to haul all the way home. That's a cycling or public transport route for me.

If I was you I'd take a large hiking backpack or rolling suitcase, walk to the store an hour ahead and then ride the bus back home.

My day to day shopping is 600-800m away.

My specialty store is 1.1km.

3km is a bit too far for me.

The most I've ever willing walked for groceries is 1.5km

About 1km one-way. I usually walk

6km, I drive ..

My closest supermarket is 400m away, and the next supermarket over is 1.1km. I walk there daily, sometimes multiple times a day. 3km is quite far and I would not consider that walking distance.

It's certainly possible to walk that distance once every (couple of) months, if I did not have my bike available for whatever reason? But I would consider regularly walking 40 minutes one way every other day to be far too much. That distance is cycling distance, not walking distance.

On a side-note. Did you just say that the bus arrives only once every four hours? My lord.. It might as well basically not exist at that point.

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.

For me it’s either 600m to a small corner shop or about 1.1km to a larger store.

I do 3km periodically for another store, but I wouldn’t do it in 30c weather. I’m barely willing to exercise in 25c weather.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

400m, or 500 in the other direction.

BUT: no one around here would walk 3km. Hell, most people won't even walk the 500m.

200 meters

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

50 meters

We have two supermarkets within five minutes walking distance, if you make it ten minutes, it's four.

Also within ten minutes walking distance are two middle schools, a primary school, and two kindergardens, several doctors and apothecaries, several shops, and the central bus station.

The latter is a bit of an disappointment, as not only the bus service is low frequency, and it takes an hour+ to the city.

3 Km is what? A half hour walk? I've lived in multiple European countries in my life and never been that far from a supermarket.

I mean, I definitely have walked that much daily. My longest walk to work I can remember was maybe 40 minutes. In some places where I'd take public transportation for like 20-30 min I've walked for an hour when I felt like it instead.

For groceries I don't think I'd take that with me that far walking unless it could go in my backpack. But seriously, if you don't have a shop in that radius around you in Europe you need a car anyway because you're out in the middle of nowhere.

But also, in European supermarkets you can normally get big grocery hauls delivered that far away. Just go there, buy your stuff, pay, book a delivery. Lots of old people who can't carry heavy weights do it. They still go to the shop, though.

I live out in the countryside. The nearest store is about 2.8km away. Put on some good music, get an ice cream for the second half of the trip, it's a lovely walk. I could catch a bus back, there's a stop right by the shop, but my timing is generally shite. If I'd be halfway home by the time the bus comes, I'd rather just walk.

Aussie, but the strip with a butcher, grocer and IGA is about 60m away, if i want more supermarkety goods i'll hop on my pushbike or walk the 1.4km to Europa

3km is kinda far, even with a bicycle, I have a small shop down the stairs and a medium supermarket at 5 min walk

Europeans aren’t a homogeneous blob - we’re individuals. There’s no universal consensus among us about what counts as a reasonable distance to the grocery store.

I bike (more carrying capacity) about 9km each direction. (Belgium to Germany, funnily enough.) That being said, not wanting to do so under the burning sun is absolutely valid.

Hunter-gatherers used to forage in a radius up to 10k 😁

Eastern part of Germany here. The closest grocery stores are about 2,5km away from my home, but we live a little more rural than most of the people in the thread. I don't walk that distance for groceries, because they don't allow dogs in, but one of the supermarkets has a DIY store right next to it, and I do walk there to get smaller items and have a nice walk with my doggo.

When I was in a similar situation, I wish I thought of “one way”. I realized after the fact that many people were walking one way to the store but taking a taxi back with their load of groceries. However I have no idea whether it was actually affordable or if that was their only choice.

You should look into that. How affordable is a taxi if you only take it one direction?

About 200 meters, but I usually take the bike down to the Lidl 1 km away.

Where I last lived I had 200 meters to a small shop and 3.5 km to the local Lidl, which was fine but not ideal.

Getting a bike with a rack might be a good idea for your grocery runs. 3 km is less than 10 minutes on a bike.

I recently moved somewhere a little further from the shops. I can take the bus part of the way but still need to walk around 1km each way, so I've invested in a Clax trolley to carry my groceries.

If I was in your situation, I would buy a light, foldable cart, take the bus to the shops, and walk home.

One more opinion: 3km is definitely too far for groceries, that's driving distance. It's half an hour walking each way, the return loaded with bags? Forget about it.

I live on the edge of a small-ish town and it takes me 15 min to the nearest supermarket, and that's quite a lot, everyone on this streets bikes there, in about 5 min. From there towards the center you don't need to walk more than 5 min to get groceries.

I'd say having to walk more than a 10 minutes for groceries already affects the apartment value.

Got four different shops within ~500m.

900m. I live at the edge of town...

I don't have to walk more that 10 minutes to a "grocery store" where I live (which is kind of in between rural and urban) but occasionally I might walk 3+ km and back to somewhere with a better selection, take a backpack, that's not an unreasonable walk to me. If I had to do it every day I might complain.

• 180m to the nearest small supermarket which has a satisfactory selection

• 450m-650m to three normal-sized supermarkets which have everything I need in daily life

• 1km to a mall which has everything I could ever ask for in life

Yes, I live in the city.

About 500m or, if I want to go to a larger supermarket, about 2km.