How to start a walking group with friends who live in different cities
You start a walking group with friends who live in different cities the same way you'd start one down the street, minus the meeting point. Everyone agrees to walk most days, everyone tells the group when they did, and the group notices when someone hasn't. The walks happen separately. The group happens on your phones.
That's it. That's the whole idea. But most long-distance walking groups fall apart within two weeks, and I think it's because people skip the boring decisions at the start. So here's how I'd set one up, the problems you'll hit, and what to do about them.
Can you really walk "together" from different cities?
Yes, as long as you change what "together" means. It doesn't mean the same sidewalk at the same time. It means the same day. My friends and I live in different places and we walk every day, and we still call it walking together, because we know when each other went. Someone walks at 7am in one time zone, someone else walks at lunch three provinces over, and by the evening everyone has gone. That's a walk together.
Once you let go of needing the same route and the same hour, distance stops being a problem. Time zones stop being a problem. The only thing that matters is that you each went outside today, and that your friends know it.
Why the group chat isn't enough
The first thing everyone tries is a group chat. "Walking club 🚶♀️." It's great for about four days.
Here's what happens. Someone posts "went for a walk!" and everyone hearts it. Then the chat moves on to a dog photo and a work rant and somebody's weekend plans, and the walk updates get buried. By the second week nobody knows who walked today. And nobody wants to be the person who types "did everyone go?" because that feels like nagging your friends, and you'd rather skip your own walk than be that person.
A walking group needs two things a normal chat doesn't do well: a clear record of who went today, and a way to nudge a friend that doesn't feel like scolding. You can hack this with a daily thread or a shared note. Just know going in that the chat is the weak point, not your friends.
How to start a long-distance walking group
- Pick a small group. Two to five people is the sweet spot. Not the whole friend group, not everyone from your old job. The people you'd actually want to hear from every day. In a big group, missing a day is invisible. In a small one, it's noticed, in a nice way.
- Agree on what counts. This is the decision people skip. I'd make it "a walk." Not a distance, not a number of steps, not a minimum time. If someone's version of a walk is ten minutes around the block, that counts, and the group has to mean it. Anyone who wants a bigger goal can set one for themselves. The shared bar stays low on purpose. The low bar is why people keep showing up.
- Decide where you check in. One place, every day. A daily thread, a shared note, a habit app, or a walking app built for this. What you pick matters less than the fact that it's the same place every time, and that you can see at a glance who's gone.
- Pick a loose rhythm, not a time. With different cities and time zones you can't do "7am together." So the rule is "by the end of your day." Everyone's day ends at a different time and that's fine.
- Agree on how you'll nudge each other. Say it out loud before you start: "if I haven't gone by dinner, bug me, and I won't be annoyed." Giving each other permission ahead of time is what makes a nudge feel like love instead of pressure.
- Start with a short commitment. Try a week. Seven days together is enough to find out if the group works, and short enough that nobody feels trapped. If it's going well, do another week. Thirty days later you have a walking group and you didn't need to announce it.
What to do when someone stops showing up
Someone will. Usually around day ten. They'll have a hard week, miss two days, feel weird about it, and go quiet.
The worst thing the group can do is nothing. The second worst thing is a lecture. What works is a small, warm nudge with no judgment attached. "Miss you out there, go for a little one." Then let it go. Don't keep score of the missed days, and don't make them explain. When they come back, celebrate like they never left, because the point of the group was never a perfect record. It was that your friends notice you.
If you set the bar low in step two, coming back is easy. Ten minutes outside and they're in again.
Does walking with friends far away actually help?
In my experience, more than walking with friends nearby. When the friend is in the same city, the plan depends on both of you being free at the same time, and then it rains, and then it's next week. When your friends are far away, there's nothing to schedule. The only question each day is "did you go?" And knowing that three people in three cities are going to see whether you went is a surprisingly strong reason to put on shoes.
It also changes the walk. You're not walking to hit a number. You're walking because your friends are walking too, somewhere else, and you'll all have gone by tonight. I wrote about that kind of walk in what is a silly goose walk. No pace, no distance, just going.
How gaggle does this
I built gaggle for exactly this setup, because my friends and I are in different cities and the group chat wasn't cutting it. You start a gaggle, a group of up to 6 friends (or up to 10 with gaggle+), and everyone picks their own daily goal. "Just get outside" is a valid goal. When you walk, you tap "I waddled," and everyone in your gaggle gets a notification that you went. That's the daily check-in, handled.
If a friend hasn't walked yet today, you send a honk. It lands on their phone as "get waddling, silly goose." One honk per friend per day, so it can't turn into nagging. Showing up earns petals, petals grow your garden, and your streak keeps going. There's no calorie count and no ranking by steps unless your group opts into it. The whole thing is built around the one question that matters for a long-distance group: did you go today?
It's free on iPhone and Android. If you'd rather use a chat or a different app, the steps above still work. I compared the other options in the best walking apps with friends if you want to see what else is out there.
Pick three friends, agree that a walk is a walk, and go for a little one today. 🪿
