Last night there was an entertaining diary regarding neighborhood walk-ability.
Walk Score is an entertaining - and potentially useful - site that's fun to play around with. It's simple: You put in your address and it returns a score (out of 100) based on how "walkable" it thinks your neighborhood is, looking at how far away things like the nearest schools, restaurants, and libraries are. It's not always perfect - it thinks the closest park to me is something called "Monarch Parking LLC"... er, almost, but it's actually a parking garage. Still, it gets quite a lot right, and can be a valuable tool if you're ever looking to move.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
This ties in nicely with First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign to get people of all ages out and about exercising.
My 11 year old daughter has recently been introduced to the exciting, and addicting, exploring and walking game of Geocaching.
Geocaching is the 21st century version of the old game, Letterboxing, that dates back to 1850's England.
Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment.
http://www.geocaching.com/
Here is the Wikipedia entry...
Geocaching is an outdoor activity in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called "geocaches" or "caches") anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container (usually a tupperware container or ammo box) containing a logbook. Larger containers can also contain items for trading, usually toys or trinkets of little value. Geocaching is most often described as a "game of high-tech hide and seek," sharing many aspects with benchmarking, trigpointing, orienteering, treasure-hunting, Letterboxing, and waymarking.
Geocaches are currently placed in over 100 countries around the world and on all seven continents, including Antarctica.[1] After 10 years of activity there are over 1 million active geocaches published on various web sites.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
With access to the Internet, you do not need an expensive GPS device.
All you do is copy and paste the geographic coordinates from any geocache website into an on-line map such as Google Earth and it will show you the hidden location within several feet. With over a million caches out there, there are bound to be a few within walking distance of you right now.