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Flat-ground estimates. For hills, walkers use Naismith's rule: add roughly 10 minutes for every 100 metres of ascent. Google Maps assumes about 3 mph, which is why its walking times feel generous to brisk walkers.
What The Walking Time Calculator Works Out
- Walking time: distance divided by pace. 3 mph (a mile every 20 minutes) is the moderate pace most adults settle into and the one mapping apps assume, 4 mph is genuinely brisk, and 2.5 mph is a stroll with a dog that reads every lamppost. Three miles takes an hour at moderate pace and 45 minutes walked briskly.
- Approximate steps: miles multiplied by about 2,100 steps. Roughly 2,000 to 2,200 steps make a mile for average strides.
- Calories (70kg walker): the MET value for the pace (2.8 strolling, 3.3 moderate, 4.3 brisk, 6 power walking) multiplied by 70 kg and the hours walked.
- Total ascent (advanced): applies Naismith's rule, from 1892 and still used by every mountain rescue team: add about 10 minutes for every 100 metres of climb. A 3-mile fell route climbing 300 metres is an hour and a half, not an hour.
- Rest and photo stops (advanced): fixed minutes added on top. Heat, heavy packs, mud and stiles all tax the average further, which is why group walks are planned at the slowest member's pace plus stops.
- Custom pace (advanced): use your own measured speed instead of the dropdown, for example from a fitness watch.
- Calories at your weight (advanced): the same MET calculation at your body weight, including the extra time the climb adds. Heavier walkers burn proportionally more.
- Pace (advanced): the same speed as minutes per mile, km/h and minutes per km (5 km/h moderate, 6.5 km/h brisk), plus the overall speed once hills are included.
- Weekly activity (advanced): the walk's total time multiplied by how many times a week you do it, as a share of the NHS target of 150 moderate minutes. Brisk walking counts fully; a daily 30-minute brisk walk quietly banks around 1,000 kcal a week.
- Pace table (advanced): this route at all four standard paces, with and without the hills and stops, so you can plan a group walk around the slowest walker.
Source and further reading: NHS: walking for health.