For Walking the City week – exploring all aspects of urban walking, good and bad – writers tell us where they walk and why.

Will Self watches the world go by at Charing Cross in London; Fran Lebowitz finds areas of midtown New York off-limits because Donald Trump lives there; Helen Garner says her quotidian route through her Melbourne suburb is not beautiful or meaningful to anyone but her.

These and other writers have shared their love letters to urban walking. And we’re eager to hear yours. You can send your routes, views and reflections to us using this form, or on social media with the hashtag #GuardianWalking.

‘My daily walk loops me back on my lifecycle’

Will Self in London

In the early 1900s, 90% of journeys fewer than six miles were taken on foot. Would that they still were! Between being online and being on a bus or a train, we all too often lose our sense of properly being where we are: walking sets that right, as with each footstep we plant, we’re revivified by our perceptions of this genuinely firma terra.

I walk in London a great deal, and always have. In my teenage years and my 20s, I mainly walked because I was skint. But with age – and some emolument – has come walking for health; physical – and more importantly mental. My favourite walk is a workaday one, from my home in Stockwell – where I both live and work – to Soho, in yet more central London, where I socialise and shop.

There are several possible routes: the grandstanding one takes me past the Vauxhall Tavern, south London’s most celebrated gay pub, and its near neighbour, the MI6 building; then along the Thames embankment, past the Houses of Parliament, and up Whitehall to Trafalgar Square, before I work my way through the backstreets around Leicester Square and enter Soho. But should I want to avoid busy streets, and the phalanxes of tourists battling it out against the three-card-monte scam merchants on Westminster Bridge, I can cross at Vauxhall instead, and make my way through the Arts and Crafts blocks of flats behind Tate Britain (built as social housing, but now luxury flats – many of which are used as pied-à-terres by our lordly legislators), then along Marsham Street through the back of Parliament Square, along Horseguards, and via King George’s steps, up to Lower Regent Street and Piccadilly.

Listen, I know it seems an insult to detail all these storied landmarks as my mere way-stations en route to buy some stationery, or have a coffee with a friend. But in my defence – despite the depredations of neoliberalism, and its sequel: the complete commoditisation of urban space – it remains the case that London is a very big city indeed. If you know your way around it (or are prepared to get lost), you can always find a vista that’s been overlooked, or an under-recognised corner of a familiar neighbourhood. There’s this – and there’s the delight of true flânerie: the ambulatory pursuit of chance encounters, overheard aperçus, and those little unrepeatable vignettes that constitute the never-ending drama of urban life.

It was Dr Johnson who remarked that if you were to stand by the Charing Cross for long enough, you’d see the entire world go by. My regular walk can take me past this spot – which feels to me like some strange sort of still point, around which that processing world does indeed revolve. But then that could be because I was born in the old Charing Cross hospital, a few yards away – which means that even my quotidian pedestrianism loops me back in to my own lifecycle.

‘Trump’s even made walking worse’

Fran Lebowitz in New York

I’ve never taken a walk just to walk. People who drive everywhere “take a walk”, but for me it’s a form of transportation. I like to walk because, first of all, you’re in control. I could tell you exactly how long it will take you to get from one point in New York to another because I’ve walked it a million times. This is not something you say of the subway. It could take you 10 minutes, or it could take you an hour, or you may never get there.

Walking used to be a kind of pleasure, but it is really an enormous effort to make your way around town on foot. The bicycles everywhere, the tourists everywhere, some tourists on bicycles – the worst possible combination. I feel like I’m in The Exorcist, my head twirling around to see what way they’re coming from. The cyclists are in general quite smug, with that expression on their face like “I am saving the planet”. I always think: “No, I am.” They didn’t have to manufacture me in a factory. When I wear out, they’re not going to throw me away in a pile of metal and plastic.

The tourists obviously come from places where no one walks anywhere. They don’t think of the sidewalk as a road for humans. Though they may annoy me – all humans annoy me – people who live and work here are always in a rush to get where they’re going, because they have to get to work to make enough money to be able to afford their apartment. They don’t stand in the middle of the sidewalk on their phones.

I do not have a phone so when everyone started looking at their phones all the time, I could not believe that everyone was abdicating the observation of New York and giving the whole city to me. I am always saying to people: “did you notice that building?” And they say “no”, because no one looks up except me. To me, it’s like winning a lottery. They just handed me the city. I’m the official noticer.

Of course Trump has made everything in the world worse, including being a pedestrian. Because he lives right on Fifth Avenue there is a big part of midtown you can’t even go down anymore. Now it’s Trump’s area. If he is there, or his wife is there, you can’t walk on that block. I’ve had numerous fights with cops about this. A cop once told me: “You cannot walk on this block”. I said: “I am walking on this block”. I almost got arrested, she was so angry at me.

Most of my memories of walking stand out for being unpleasant. But there was one day in the seventies, back when New York was mostly filled with New Yorkers. I was walking up Madison Avenue and I noticed that the people walking towards me were kind of stopped. It was just very odd. Of course Madison Avenue is very fancy, especially then – I had never seen people behaving like this.

There, coming towards me, was Cary Grant, in a white linen suit, with his white linen hair. He was emanating white. There are a million celebrities in New York. One thing you must never do is look at them, especially not on Madison Avenue. I had never seen New Yorkers stop like that.
As told to Elle Hunt

‘Putting litter in the bin makes a lucky day’

Helen Garner in Melbourne

I walk this exact route through my Melbourne suburb of Flemington every morning. It’s not beautiful or meaningful to anyone but me.

I barge out my front gate, under plane trees in which magpies sometimes warble. I cross the railway bridge, turn east at the house with the huge fig tree, then north again, past the brick garage and its inexplicably prolific gardenia bush. Nothing much to report till I reach the witch’s house with the iron lace veranda and the hedge of dark pink rose bushes that no one’s pruned for years. Every day I think their disgraceful neglect of those roses entitles me to pinch some on my way back. But I know I won’t because my walk is a circle and I won’t pass them again till tomorrow.

I cut through the booze warehouse car park and dash across the big road to the Bikram yoga school, then dive into the street with the weird antique shop on the corner. Good houses in a row, big wide Californian bungalows. Here, where the street drops downhill to the hockey fields and the concreted creek bed, I once saw a fox go strolling home at dawn. Another day a horrible man cursed me out and kicked my dog in the ribs.

Where the shared pedestrian and cycle track runs alongside the freeway wall I turn south again and pick up speed. Riders heading for the city zoom up behind me with sharp little warning chimes, and gusts of air as they pass. I’m breathing hard and feeling powerful. Here comes the old Chinese couple, the dead-faced woman and the husband with his desperate smile. A tradesman in hi-vis stands in the middle of the football oval, reaches for the sky and bows three times.

At the primary school I turn right and tackle the steepest hill. Halfway up, panting, nearly home, I cop the first lemony whiffs of my reward: pittosporum blossom. Its perfume floats between the houses from an invisible tree.

If I can scoop up that McDonald’s rubbish from the playground gate and shove it into the bin without breaking stride, I’ll have earned myself a lucky day. All this, with its seasonal variations, takes up 40 minutes of what remains of my life, in my undistinguished and beloved suburb.

‘Walking is transgressive in carmaggedon’

Rory Carroll in Los Angeles

One of the great joys of my years in Los Angeles was being able to leave my car at home and walk – to a cafe, a supermarket, the library, the beach. In the world’s car capital this could seem a transgressive act, putting one foot in front of the other. This, after all, is a sprawling metropolis where sidewalks often don’t exist, where everyone obsesses about exit ramps and parking and where traffic jams get nicknamed carmageddon.

But in Santa Monica, a small city wedged between Malibu and Venice, walking was not only feasible, it was pleasurable and an efficient way to get around. My morning routine included wheeling my toddler from our home on Montana Avenue to her daycare at the YMCA on Sixth Street, a one mile, 15-minute stroll past low-rise homes, stores, offices and cafes.

Sunshine, wide pavements, pedestrian-friendly crossings – it was bliss. We were on nodding terms with some joggers and dog-walkers, listened to birdsong, paused to collect pebbles, monitored Fourth of July bunting giving way to Halloween pumpkins, then Christmas trees. I learned the timing of the traffic lights on Wilshire Boulevard, a busy thoroughfare, with precision, knowing when to stroll, to trot, to gallop, my daughter strapped into her stroller shouting “faster”.

During the long, hot summers and autumns I had one grumble: palm trees. Great for postcards, useless for shade.

‘There’s zen-like triumph in battling the elements’

Ashleigh Young in Wellington

Visitors praise Wellington for its compactness. “It’s so compact!” The word is said with a sort of chef’s kiss.It is convenient to be able to walk everywhere, but that’s also why, sometimes, I don’t want to walk everywhere. Everyone else will also be walking everywhere. Wellington is a relatively young city but its history of unwanted social encounters is richly layered.

I was once walking on Wellington’s beautiful south coast, along a long footpath – empty but for an old housemate of mine with whom I’d badly fallen out years earlier. We walked towards each other on that path by the sea, as though in chilling slow motion and after approximately 100 years, we passed. It felt like an outtake of Blue Planet.

To succeed as a walker in Wellington, you must embrace the turbulence – both social and, infamously, weather-related. When it rains, you’ll want to rip out the slippery cobblestones of death in the central city; on gale-force days, you’ll want to campaign to have the city rebuilt underground.

The biggest problem I have to contend with when walking is truly my own annoyance. A sudden hail-studded gale blowing open my jacket – I’m indignant. Slow walkers on a tiny footpath and there’s nowhere to pass – my spleen’s swelling. A 4WD mounting the pavement so that it can pass an oncoming car on a narrow road – I’m Larry David in Paris. I’ve internalised the city’s melodramatic tendencies.

But then you’ll be stumping along in a gale and suddenly the silvery harbour is winking through trees. Or a native wood pigeon is perched on a powerline, its chest puffed out like a doughnut. Even the overhead wires for trolley buses that used to crisscross the skyline lent the streets a punk beauty. Wellington is full of these postcard moments, and you see more of them when you’re on foot.

Sometimes, if you’ve been here long enough, when you look into the contorted faces of other pedestrians as they’re lashed by rain, you can just about see a kind of zen-like triumph.

‘Well-behaved women do not walk at night’

Priya Alika Elias in Delhi

In Delhi, the female pedestrian is a rare bird. For one thing, it’s too hot most of the year (Delhi summers are notorious for wilting the most hardened traveller). For another, there are too many men, jostling and crowding each other, busying themselves with Typical Male Activities. Once twilight falls, who’s left on the streets but the male cigarette-vendor, the male chaiwalla? Men stake out their territory while women remain quietly at home, making dinner for their families.

And yet I enjoy walking in Delhi. I make it a point to buy my own groceries from the store near my home. I walk in Old Delhi for an hour and reward myself with kebabs that I have to eat standing up in a crowded restaurant. In Lodi Gardens, where it is cooler, I watch peacocks in silhouette against the tomb of Sikandar Lodi. There are clandestine lovers cuddling in the bushes, and I stifle a smile – in India, lovers are always on a quest for privacy.

Most of all, I enjoy walking at night, down the zigzag lanes of Hauz Khas Village or Green Park. I walk in whatever I like, refusing to defer to the convention that women dress modestly. Yes, there are male eyes on me, staring at my crop top. Often men are astonished at the things I do in public, like walking out to buy a bottle of wine.

Well-behaved women do not walk on the Delhi roads at night. “It isn’t safe,” people whisper. But women who walk often know the joys of walking, and we will not be deprived.

‘It feels like a city made for the foot’

Frances Ryan in Newcastle

Whenever I visit a city, I like to explore on foot (I use a wheelchair full time but, like most disabled people, still use the phrase “on foot”). This is partly because of access – I’ve learnt getting around a city in a wheelchair is often much more enjoyable without having to rely on an inaccessible underground network or unreliable taxi firms (and with them, ramps and disgruntled drivers). But it’s as much because I’ve always thought there was something special about exploring a city as a pedestrian.

When I’m visiting my sister in Newcastle, I’ll go everywhere by foot if possible. Little is said about how much of a treat it is to walk through, particularly along the Quayside. As a visitor, I spend much of my time there. I love how easy it is to leave the car behind and simply walk – to a bar, an art centre, restaurant, a concert hall. For a city known for its north-east chill, you could convince yourself there’s a holiday air about this strip.

Famed for its multiple bridges, there’s something uniquely tranquil about walking along the bank of the river Tyne, seeing the rainbow arch of the Gateshead Millennium Bridge reflected across the surface of the water. Designed as a pedestrian and cycling bridge, it has the feel of infrastructure of a city genuinely made for the foot, with the sound of shoes on metallic flooring connecting workers, city break tourists, and locals to both sides of the river.

In the evening I take a 30-minute wander past flats, offices and eateries accompanied by dog-walkers, restaurant dwellers, and the smattering of hen and stag do’s trickling over from the city centre. On a Sunday afternoon, I meander along the bankside market scattered with independent stallholders and arts and crafts.

If the sun makes a showing, few things are better than strolling along the quayside at your own pace. If it doesn’t – just take a coat.

‘An enjoyable route feels like a delicious secret’

Ruth Michaelson in Cairo

Cairo isn’t a city that invites walking. Stepping outside my house often means weaving a path between roaring lanes of traffic and parked cars, across a busy street to try and to find space to walk. There’s the added problem of street harassment, which necessitates headphones and sometimes a quick glare. Walking along the Corniche, snaking along the Nile with its slippery new pink pavement, the wind and lingering stares constant slaps in the face, can feel like an achievement – even defiant.

But finding a route for an enjoyable walk feels like being in possession of a delicious secret. Mine is strolling under the leafy canopy of the Garden City district, a labyrinthine sprawl of crumbling early 20th-century buildings. The knowing nod of familiarity from the friendly shoe-shiner on the corner, and the woman who tosses food down to the stray cats and dogs from her first-floor window, always give me a feeling of comfort.

I’m also fond of ducking behind the Hussein Mosque near the Khan al Khalili market to wind between pedestrians and stalls of books and souvenirs on the unpaved road leading to the old bookbinding shop. A favourite short stroll near my house in the Zamalek neighbourhood is in a nursery garden under the 15th May bridge, tucked between the riverbank and the lanes of cars clogging the road that runs along the Nile. There I’m surrounded by towering succulents, and normally cave in to picking new plants from the rows of jasmine and cacti. Cairo can feel like a pressure cooker at street level, but its joys are tucked away in its corners, a short walk away.

‘Cities like to pretend they have beaten off nature’

Tristan Gooley in Portsmouth

Living or working in areas of a city where the setting changes every few steps can be exhausting on the senses. But they provide an attractive backdrop for flânerie. In Portsmouth, the stone snake of the Millennium Promenade offers cliff-steep changes in landscape every few metres: old, new, wealth, poverty, art, industry, silence, skyscrapers looming above, water below.

Discordant landscapes like these are especially rich in clues and signs, because every change becomes part of the city’s map. In the historical dockyard area, you don’t need to know the value of every property you pass to gauge its distance from the sea – just look at how the estate agent’s placards grow cleaner and shinier as the water draws closer.

Cities like to pretend they have beaten off nature, but it creeps back in a way least expected. On the south-facing side of the street cheery gangs sit outside cafes and restaurants, but on the other side shop windows are boarded up. We gravitate to the sunny side of the street but this street-dining compass is the difference between boom and bust for proprietors.

TV satellite dishes point close to south-east, which in Portsmouth means they hold a finger towards the direction the ferries will arrive. Those attuned to nature’s clues will spot the trees on the streets change from usual suspects to rarer salt-tolerant species, like oleasters, just before the sea appears.

You can find a station by going against the thicker stream of crowds – people disembark as one mass from trains but find their way to them in drips. In all commuter cities there is a flow from stations in the morning and towards late afternoon. If you are really lost, you can ask a local for directions. Watch for someone who doesn’t pause before crossing the road – the better we know an area, the less time we spend at the pavement’s edge.

Of course, a smartphone can reveal much of this. But using technology in these situations comes at great cost – not financial, but to the potential experience. The digital map reduces a city’s colours from a million to three and its sounds, smells and tastes to nil. It gives no sense of the fish markets and artists’ studios, the topless youths shouting sharp obscenities and the silent fishermen trying their luck, the fresh sea zephyrs and diesel fumes, greedy gulls’ cries and clanking anchor chains.

As Sam Johnson didn’t say: when a person tires of their smartphone, they are ready for city life.

We’re eager to hear your thoughts and experiences of walking in cities. Please share your reflections with us using this form, or on social media with the hashtag #GuardianWalking. Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter and Instagram