Ask Lemmy

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.

I have a grocery store in the first floor of the building, so just an elevator down and up. One supermarket in each direction 550 and 650 meters. But I live in the city centre, so that is a privilege most people do not have.

I live in a city center in Norway. Grocery stores surround me. Several within a few blocks. Maybe moving soon to a rural area where the closest will probably be 10 minutes via bus. But still not too shabby.

6km, I drive ..

The closest small one is about 1 km, a reasonably sized one for stocking up is 5 km or so. I have never walked to either in 5+ years of living here. Even the closer one is like a 10 minute walk (ish), and then I would have to carry back what I bought, which also means I can barely buy anything. 5 km is more like an hour by foot one way, so that's just not happening, ever.

I usually take my bike to the closer one, or the cargo bike to the bigger one. I also pass by the smaller one on the way home from work (I commute by bike). The fact that I own bikes is why there's never any rain to walk anywhere, basically. Additionally, there is very little sense in taking a (relatively small capacity) bike to a big store when a cargo bike is available. I also don't own a car. I don't know a single person who would regularly walk 1 km+ for shopping, but I also don't know anyone who doesn't own any form of personal transport. Most would usually take a bike, and take a car for bigger or heavier trips.

Taking a bus or tram/train for grocery shopping does happen for some, but highly depends on the local situation and town or city layout if that can bring useful time savings. Unless you live is the middle of nowhere, bus and train schedules are anywhere from every 10 to 30 minutes or so, more frequent in dense areas where there's multiple lines.

Edit: for context, I live on the outskirts of a medium sized city (250k inhabitants), but my town only has 3500 or so. The small supermarket is on the literal other side of that town, the bigger one is one town over (opposite direction of city). Distance to the city is also only only 10 km or so (to the center), but there happen to be no "attractive" supermarkets in that direction for me.

Not European, but most people in my city would say "3 minutes" as they'd live directly above a mall. I live somewhere quieter, so it's about 12 minutes for me to the closest supermarket, and 4 more if I want to go for cheaper groceries, hella restaurants and food stalls, and boba.

When I was staying in Berlin, the closest Lidl was a 15-minute walk away.

My nearest store is about 3km away and I will usually walk there unless I'm picking up anything especially heavy or bulky.

Vilnius, Lithuania. 3 different shops 5 min walk from home. And its not even high density urban area. I shop almost every day

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

3 km sounds like too much to me. I don't think most people here would walk that far to do their shopping, especially in 30°C heat, mostly because we usually have small supermarkets all around.

I currently walk 500 m to my small neighbourhood supermarket when I just need to buy a few things and I don't recall ever living further away from some small supermaket. When I am running out of provisions, I take my car and go to a big hypermarket 7 km away. There are other hypermarkets closer by, even within walking distance (2.3 km), but that farther one is the one I like for doing a big shopping.

Of course, distance isn't the only factor. It's not the same 500 m in London or Amsterdam which are mostly flat than in the city where I live now, where the 500 m to my supermarket have gradients of up to 15 %.

About 1km one-way. I usually walk

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.

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.

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

I have 5 supermarkets to choose from within a 10 min walking distance

Obligatory "I'm not European" but have quite a few online friends from euro land that I yak with regularly.

Remember their grocery shopping habits are (typically) much different than Americans. Where US shoppers may go once every week or two, and make large bulk purchases to load into their car, it's more common there to stop by a market every day or two on the way home from work or another errand, just to get a single light bag that is enough for the next couple meals. "Carrying home groceries" for a km or two is less of a chore if it's not 25kg of groceries at a time.

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

500m to a small one, 1.2 to a fairly sized supermarket, some 3 km to a hypermarket.

Walking to the hypermarket and back is something I used to do quite frequently with a friend or another, but it is a slight chore, and I wouldn't enjoy going in -25C.

Usually if I have to walk I'll go to the supermarket, 1.2km is a very reasonable distance to walk.

Or 500m for some quick stuffs like a few beers or tobacco from the closest small store

Depends on what I want (availability in the shop).
But anything is in a range of about 6km in every direction and reachable by bike.
Got a Lidl, Aldi, Edeka Center, Rewe, Kaufland in my range.
All of mid size.

Depending on the weight I am willing to carry the groceries (if they don't need cooling).
But that depends on how much time I have and if I am in the mood.

500m to the cheap one and 750m to the one with the bigger selection. I walk or bike there. 3km would be too much for me i think. I would take the bus or train as i don’t have a car either, but doesn’t sound like fun.

I don't live in Europe anymore, but it was about 2.5km one way. There was a closer one, but from a chain I absolutely hated, so there I'd only pick up heavy or bulky stuff, like drinks, toilet paper etc.

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.

I have several grocery stores of different chains in my vicinity, in a 3km radius I could probably choose between 10+ locations (I just checked after posting: There are at least 18 grocery stores within that range and some options like farmer markets not listed). I only go to the closest ones (~500m) by foot, for most things further away I take my bike.

I have a neighbourhood small shop at 5 min from me. But I usually go to bigger ones 30 min or a bit more so I can get some exercise and enjoy nature and fresh air.

200 meters

About 60m. 30 if I cut across the courtyard. It almost takes me longer taking the stairs down from 4th than walking the rest of the way.

I am in the states, my only non-Walmart grocery store is 0.5km and before my bike was stolen I used to ride there for groceries quite often. I rarely walk it, but I also hike ~9km a day with my dog.

I am in New Mexico and our temps are more like 36-39c. I am trying to get out of my truck more.

Nearest store 8 min walk. The one i perfer, 20 min biking and 10km away. Living on the countryside

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

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.

The nearest to me is super run down and gross with people doing drugs in the parking lot, and its 2.7km from me. Instead I end up going to a nice one in a different part of town just over 9km away. Obviously driving is the only option for either.

About 10 to 15 minutes walk depending on where you want to shop

I’m in the US (and in FL no less so it’s routinely 30-38C/80-100F). I moved to my specific house, among other reasons, because it’s about 250M/a quarter mile from a grocery store. I walk there 2x/week and carry back on average about 10kg/20-25 lbs of groceries. Lots of others in my neighborhood do the same, but most of Florida is not built for walking which is incredibly disappointing.

From Serbia, I have a supermarket about 200m from my apartment and a mall with a huge supermarket about 20 mins away on foot. In my city at least, you're rarely more than 15 mins away by foot from a supermarket, they're everywhere.

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

If it is more than 1 km, I bike. Not that it is too much to walk but it is too much to carry heavy bags.

I have a bunch of medium and small shops very close to my house, a market, and a few supermarkets about 30-40 minutes away.

In your situation I would probably order my weekly groceries online, if that was an option. I would still visit the grocery store occasionally, in which case I would walk and/or go by bus. Well, in reality I would probably own a bike, but that also depends on your infrastructure over there. I’ve never lived that far from the nearest grocery store, though. There are many options here within that radius, the nearest ones being basically next door.

I have several stores I frequently visit here, from 300 to 1500 meters away. If I need something from further away I just jump into the car or on my bike. It's not the distance that keeps me from it, I walk about 10 kilometers a day with my dogs and friends. I just don't want to walk an hour to get groceries, that's boring as hell.

80 meters lol. I've lived in cities, where it's always been less than 700 meters.

I have shop few meters away from my home, but I only go there, when I forgot to buy something or just quickly need snacks for a movie or it's bad weather, but usually I just buy everything from other grocery store which is 2 km away, but I like their food selection more and they got cheaper prices. Sometimes I also walk to big supermarket which is 4 km away.

3 km doesn't seem much for me or most of my friends,some of them even own a car and still walk 2-4 km to the grocery shop, instead of driving, but some people I know, would rather drive a car or take a bus.

2 miles. I drive it. There are shops nearby but they're a bit pricey

I've lived in different places here, currently I have a couple of options in a 400m radius, in my previous house I used to have two options in a 100m radius. Before that I lived in another country and had a small market at around 600m and the nearest supermarket was at 1.5km, I almost never went to the big one and instead had them deliver to my house, but it wasn't a chore going there, it was just boring and a waste of time when I could just order online.

A few years back I used to live in a small city and my options were 1km for a small market or 3km for a big one, you sort of get used to going the 3km to the big one when needed, but it's not fun, and I would consistently put out going to the big one until it was absolutely necessary. I believe 3km is bike distance, sure you can walk that much, it's not that far away, but it takes a long time and is exhausting carrying lots of groceries in summer for that long.

All of that being said, I was not born in Europe, so locals might have different opinions, although I think everyone I've talked to thinks that above 1km it becomes bike/scooter distance for routine things (you don't need a bike if you're going to the cinema at 1km, but grocery or other routine stuff it's worth the investment just on the time you'll save)