An invitation to walk 100 miles around the perimeter of Philadelphia

If you think you know Philadelphia, I’d like to invite you to consider walking around this city with your neighbors.

And by “around,” I mean all the way around the city’s furthest margins, roughly 100 miles. Having recently completed my 15th trek around the city’s border in a decade, here’s what I can say for sure: Philly is vast. Complicated. Mysterious. Unknowable. Full of contrasts.

Where else than on the edge of Philadelphia can you connect Glen Foerd, a historic mansion that offers birding programs, with RAIR, a waste processing facility that hosts an artist residency? On this same segment, you’ll see State Road, a razor-wired prison complex, and Pennypack on the Delaware, a gorgeous waterfront park. But this very same walk along the upper Delaware River Trail also gives glimpses of the Baxter Water Treatment Plant that provides most of the city’s drinking water, alongside the places where our police officers and firefighters train.

Walking clockwise and counterclockwise around the farthest margins of this wild city with my neighbors has been one of the most enlightening and rewarding experiences of my life, which is why I keep on doing it, inviting others to join, and working to make this unique way of experiencing the city more accessible to all. This deceptively simple practice of exploring our boundaries together has the potential to be transformative.

Before I set out on my first walk around Philadelphia in 2016, I thought I knew this city pretty well. I’ve lived here since 1997, and had my name on the biggest piece of public art in the city — the nearly 85,000-square-foot How Philly Moves mural at Philadelphia International Airport.

But I’d never set foot in Northeast Philly. My knowledge of the Northwest was limited to the Wissahickon. While I’d been to the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum in Southwest Philly, I knew nothing of the Clearview superfund site just upstream, or the flood risks impacting my neighbors in Eastwick.

And while I’d crossed the George C. Platt Memorial Bridge hundreds of times on my way to the airport and points south, I’d never imagined the thrill of crossing it on foot, with traffic whipping by on one side. On the other, a steep drop down to the Schuylkill, and the site of the former Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery that exploded in 2019. I stopped to gawk at a hawk flying below me and saw a fox running across the barren industrial landscape.

Here’s the thing about circumnavigating the city on foot: It effortlessly combines lessons in ecology, infrastructure, civics, history, and so much more. Walking Philly’s border won’t just bring you by the stadium where the Eagles play, but also to many places in Philly where you might catch a glimpse of bald eagles in real life. You’ll see a well-known set of ruins like Graffiti Pier, and the less well-known but equally astonishing set of industrial ruins on the edge of Benjamin Rush State Park.

(If you walk to the northernmost edge of Northeast Philadelphia, there literally are dragons. The house on County Line Road on the furthest edge has metal dragon sculptures in its front yard, a veritable delight).

In the five years since Walk Around Philadelphia has become a public program, at least 35 people have walked the whole perimeter of our city, over 2,000 people have participated in the project in assorted ways, and others are setting out to do the DIY version. And we’re just getting started.

The first time I took this trip, we finished in five and a half days, walking roughly 20 miles from sunrise to sunset each day. These days, the cycle of walks is offered in 12 days over four weekends of roughly 10-mile segments, and walkers can start with whichever segment (or partial segment) suits their needs.

I’ve been thrilled to see the experiences this has created, from our youngest circumnavigator, Shawn, who completed the entire 100-mile walk at age 11, to our eldest participant, George R. Fisher III, who drove the perimeter with his daughter over four days and got out to do short walks as he was able at age 96.

Walk Around Philadelphia inspired State Rep. Joe Hohenstein to organize a similar walk around his entire district in 2023. Later, he joined us for a walk along the section of his district that aligns with the city’s edge.

There’s something special about the shape, size, and diversity of experiences that make up Philadelphia’s border. Walking with neighbors is an opportunity to practice community care and find our way together — skills very much in need in these times.

In a world of AI-generated content and misinformation where we can’t know what or whom to trust, we need opportunities to ground in a shared experience of reality. In a world where we can so easily feel isolated, polarized, and alienated, we need in-person events that bring us all together. In a world where social media can lead to antisocial behavior, and connected devices can lead us to disconnect from our own bodies and environment, walking together is essential.

Amidst the growing community of perimeter walkers, some have contributed funds to help provide participant stipends for those facing financial hardships, while others have come back as Trail Angels to surprise perimeter walkers in the wilderness with treats.

Every time we set out to walk together, it amazes me to see complete strangers fall in stride and drop into easy conversation — to see them reach out without the slightest hesitation and offer a hand to steady a fellow walker navigating an obstacle.

I’ve heard people voice fears those who walk around our city will be shot at, or that participants should wear a bulletproof vest. That fear is not reality. The greatest threat we’ve ever encountered is always cars. The walk isn’t meant to be direct advocacy for Vision Zero, but it ends up doing that, too.

So maybe you’re a proud, lifelong Philadelphian who wants to get to know the city even better. Or you just moved here and you want to discover some gems while making new friends. Maybe you’re an educator looking to facilitate experiential learning for your students. Or you want to think a bit more about Indigenous history and the impacts of these borderlines we’ve drawn.

Maybe you want to think about the physical accessibility challenges of an endeavor to explore the city’s edges and help us find ways to overcome them. Or maybe you just find a cool new spot to do some birding or go on a date. Maybe you want to make this experience of the city more accessible to all with a donation.

Walk Around Philadelphia is all this and more.

You can start your exploration of Philadelphia’s border by joining us at Cherry Street Pier this Sunday evening — March 23 from 5 to 7 p.m. — for our spring celebration and concert. The next round of walks circumnavigating the entire city won’t start until September, but keep an eye on WalkAroundPhiladelphia.org and sign up for the mailing list for invitations to shorter walks and other events between now and then.

All it takes is a first step.

Jacques-Jean “JJ” Tiziou is an artist, massage therapist, and block captain in West Philly. Walk Around Philadelphia is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a nonprofit arts service organization.