Walk. Discover.

I live about 4 hilly miles from where I work.

I'm too nervous to bike in a hilly and bike-unfriendly city. And even if I got the courage to do it, I wouldn't do it without a nice bicycle, and why would I spend that kind of money if I don't know if I'll like it.

I don't bike. At least not yet.

Occasionally I'll walk to work.

Last week, I walked, and I went the long way (an extra 1.5 miles). It took a little more than 90 minutes, and I felt great when I arrived at work.

On my journey, I realized a handful of things I had never noticed before, even though I had been driving that route recently.

• There are two hotels I never knew existed. Okay, shabby, bed-bug-ridden motels, but still, I never noticed them.
• White Castle smells good from the outside, but it still doesn't make me want to go inside.
• Sometimes people park their cars on the sidewalk and look at you like you're the crazy person.

I'd never recognized any of those things while driving. And while they are useless pieces of information, my point is that they are different. That's not to mention that the mind works wonders when it's allowed to relax.

I bet you'd be surprised and what you can get to in an hour's walk (about 3 miles). Check it out. Pull up Google Maps, find yourself, and look and what's in a three-mile radius.

Sometimes you need to slow down to actually see the world in which you reside.