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If I’m bored but cannot leave my surroundings because I’m sitting in a waiting room or the weather outside is frightful, I’ll probably people watch, read a book, or play Royal Match (a tile matching game) on my phone.
Those are all pretty common answers I’d bet, though, so let’s talk about other possibilities. Most of them are free activities and the rest are inexpensive.
Taking Long Outdoor Walks
If weather is okay for some outdoor time, I’ll go take a walk.
Walking is free, good for you, peaceful, highly customizable, and lets me discover all sorts of new shops and other places that have recently popped up or been renovated in my area. If you ask me, this is a highly underrated form of entertainment.
Asking Lots of Questions
I’m quiet, but every so often I get the urge to be talkative and share some of the thoughts that I normally keep to myself. When I was a kid, my parents and siblings were the relatives I’d bless with questions. Now my spouse gets to hear them. (The questions are normally about topics we’ve spoken a lot about, so chess or Star Trek for example).
Gazing at the Ceiling
Ceilings are often an under-appreciated aspect of architecture in my experience. I love looking up to see what sort of light fixtures, sky lights, or decorative objects might be up there. Some of them can be rather plain, I’ll admit, but others are works of art.
Exploring Library Events
I’m lucky to live in a city with a large and active library system. There’s something going on there multiple times a week, so there is a decent chance I’ll see an event on their website that would be fun to attend either virtually or in person.
Visiting Coffee Shops
I love the ambiance of coffee shops that offer seating. They’re such cozy and friendly places to visit as I enjoy a beverage or snack.
Enjoying the Park
The squirrels are currently searching for food to store away from the winter, and watching them find it can be amusing. Since some people feed them, they can also be unnervingly friendly at this time of the year. Last autumn I had one follow me for several minutes until it realized I’m not the sort of human who feeds wildlife.
I like snapping photos, so going to the park is also a good chance to look for moments that I want to capture for posterity.
This post will meander much like my Thanksgiving strolls do.
Taking a walk is a gentle form of exercise that most people are capable of doing. A pet, small child, senior family member, or loved one who might have a disability that makes more strenuous forms of exercise difficult may be able to join you.
There are a few things about Canadian and, more specifically, Torontonian culture that I should explain here for anyone who isn’t already familiar with them before diving into the meat of this post.
My headaches often spiral into a negative feedback loop of pain leading to tense muscles that in turn lead to more pain.
I know I talk about my love of long walks a lot on this blog, but this time I’m thinking of them as a type of distraction instead of a form of exercise.
Lately, I’ve been feeling the effects of cabin fever. This is typically the time of year when I’d begin spending much longer periods of time outdoors each day now that the weather is warming up.
I’d definitely recommend checking out this app to anyone who is interested in the fantasy genre, keeping track of their fitness goals, and/or getting distracted by something useful.
One of the things I enjoy the most about living in a walkable neighbourhood is how much exercise is built into my normal activities.
I don’t know about you, but I have a strong preference for types of exercise that don’t require me to change clothes, travel to a specific place, or use a particular piece of equipment.
Mall walking is a form of exercise involving people walking briskly through the long corridors of shopping malls before the stores open for the day when there are very few other folks about.
Walking can be made as easy or as difficult as it needs to be to meet your current fitness goals.
I’m the sort of person who loves walking with a partner or group of people. There’s something about walking and talking that makes both of those things much more appealing to me than they’d be on their own.
Taking an outdoor walk on a warm, spring day in Ontario is a pleasant experience.
This post is the final instalment of a four-part series I’ve been slowly working on about walking during each season of the year. Click on the links in this sentence to read about the things I love about 
While I mentioned something pretty similar to this in my post about spring hikes, but it bears repeating again for this season. There are always some people walking around in my area, but you definitely see fewer of them on cold days.
The months between April and November are filled with changes in the natural world here in southern Ontario. I revel in every change I see as plants sprout leaves, flowers bloom, or the first trees began to change colours for the season.
A year or two ago, I noticed that the temperatures were a bit cooler one August morning than they’d been that previous week. I decided to set out for a walk before the true heat of the day set in.
My dad is still logging his miles walked into this game as well. There’s nothing competitive about how far we walk or anything like that. It’s simply nice to have that companionship.