---
type: Tip
title: Walk the city
description: Harry's stated method for a place he doesn't know — cross it on foot and ask the people in it, rather than being driven between the things it is known for.
tags: [walking, cities, method, first-impressions]
timestamp: 2026-08-06T13:10:00Z
---

# Walk the city

Asked how he works out what a city is like, Harry gives the same answer in
places as different as [Manila](/places/manila.md) and
[Kandy](/places/kandy.md): **walk around it, and talk to whoever is there.**

The argument is about what walking gets you that a taxi or a tour doesn't. A
route between attractions shows you the attractions. A route on foot shows you
how the districts sit against each other, who is out at what time, and what is
being sold on the pavement between them — and it puts you at a height and a
speed where people talk to you.

## How Harry applies it

**At its most extreme, 27 km across Manila.** He walks from Valenzuela to BGC in
35°C heat, deliberately through [Tondo](/places/tondo.md), Divisoria, Binondo,
[Intramuros](/places/intramuros.md) and Malate, setting himself a different
challenge in each one. What the walk is *for* is the joins: the video is
essentially an argument about how a city that contains all of those can be one
city, which is not visible from any of them individually.

**At its most ordinary, a morning in Kandy.** No route, no distance, no
challenge — he simply says it out loud as the method and does it: walk, and ask
the people you pass what is worth doing. It produces the day's plan (a temple he
is told about), the shopping, the breakfast, and most of the conversations that
make up his first impressions of [Sri Lanka](/countries/sri-lanka.md).

The pairing is the useful part. **The method doesn't need the stunt.** The
27-kilometre version is the one that makes a video; the version that actually
runs most days is a couple of hours and no plan.

## The other option, which he names himself

Standing on a stupa above [Colombo](/places/colombo.md) at the end of a day he
spent entirely in a hired tuk-tuk, Harry states the rule with a fork in it:
arriving somewhere you know nothing about, **do one of two things — walk it, or
find a driver and let him take you round.**

That is worth having on this page rather than burying, because it stops the tip
overclaiming. He had done no research on Colombo whatsoever; one day of the
*second* option is what left him feeling he knew the city. Walking is the version
that costs nothing and works anywhere; a driver is the version for a city whose
sights are spread out and don't chain together on foot — see
[ask someone who drives for a living](/tips/ask-someone-who-drives-for-a-living.md).

**What the two share is the actual claim**: don't research it, don't plan a
route, and put yourself somewhere a local decides what you see next.

## Demonstrated in

- [Looking For Love in the Philippines! 🇵🇭](/videos/ToCePYZJ_q8.md) — 27 km
  across [Manila](/places/manila.md), district by district.
- [My First Impressions of SRI LANKA (Not what I expected)🇱🇰](/videos/4O4tALBRRTY.md) —
  states it as the general rule and spends a morning on it in
  [Kandy](/places/kandy.md).
- [$50 Sri Lankan Beef Wellington 🇱🇰](/videos/qmBWRs9rDQY.md) — the rule stated
  with its alternative, from the top of a stupa in
  [Colombo](/places/colombo.md).