Some airports have a footpath leading to them, you can literally walk from the city or anywhere else to the airport. It might sometimes be quite a distance, but it's possible. Other airports don't, you need to use other methods of transportation such as a train or a car to get to the airport.

In another threat Salt Lake City was mentioned as being only accessible by car. Despite being relatively close to the city, you can't walk to the airport.

Any other examples?

You cannot walk from MPL to the city, no way to cross the highway on foot.

Most, perhaps all, European city airports have some form of pedestrian access. Perhaps difficult in some cases with no dedicated safe route to some of the further out airports and also having to share the roadway with vehicles in some places.

Don't know about Venice though, probably possible but whether the rail / road causeway from Venice allows pedestrians I don't know.

You can walk from downtown Frankfurt to FRA, it's a long-ish walk but rather enjoyable, you would be crossing the river Main and then hike past the stadium and through the municipal forest.
BIO is foot-accessible too but here we're talking about an actual hike as you need to clear a range of hills between the Nervion valley where Bilbao is and the parallel valley in which the airport is located. I found out by accident when I was on a non aviation-related hike from the top of the Artxanda funicular.
Not sure about the current situation with the ever-progressing construction but LGA is normally accessible on foot from East Elmhurst. I had planned to walk out there on a 4-hour layover once to get food but that plan never materialized as I was offered to rebook onto a flight getting me to my destination 2.5 hours sooner.

In general I would say that US airports may be harder to reach on foot simply because the pedestrian infrastructure can be lacking in general. I've tried to do it at RDU coming in from the north along the single-carriageway access route and though I eventually pulled it off I would not do it again nor recommend it.
As for Europe, I could also imagine MAD and CDG to be rather tough in that regard, LIS should be easily reachable though.

Jutlander wrote:

You cannot walk from MPL to the city, no way to cross the highway on foot.

The round about (under the highway) leading to the airport gets an easy access by foot or bike from the nearby Zone Commerciale.

To Maugio or Perols in the other hand, in 15 min the job is done.

You can walk to ANR from the nearest train station, in like 25 minutes. It's right down the middle of a residential neighborhood too!

Have walked from SNA to office complex across the street. Probably 10 minute walk.

You CANNOT walk to The LHR central area anymore.

GVA to city center can be a nice walk in fair weather and quite safe—sidewalks or pedestrian paths.

YTZ is another as well as the long gone, but sorely missed Meigs in Chicago.

SEA is accessible by foot off International Blvd. Many crew members and business people in town for meetings etc stay at hotels along the street and walk to the terminal

lugie wrote:

I could also imagine MAD and CDG to be rather tough in that regard, LIS should be easily reachable though.

In Madrid it matters which terminal. Terminals 1, 2 and 3 are easily accessible, there's a residential area right in front of these terminals. Terminal 4 is in the middle of nowhere, pretty tough walking there.

In Paris Charles de Gaulle I wouldn't know, but the airport certainly isn't made for walking to. Orly on the other hand can be accessed on foot. It's quite a walk, but furthermore it's pretty straight-forward.

DAR and KGL can be reached by foot.
For the latter the pedestrian entrance is different than main one.

LAX can be accessed on foot, which is kind of ironic considering how car-centric Los Angeles is. There are sidewalks on both sides of Sky Way, and stairs that take you from the overpass down to Sepulveda Blvd. I've walked that route to In-N-Out Burger and back during a long layover.

lugie wrote:

In general I would say that US airports may be harder to reach on foot simply because the pedestrian infrastructure can be lacking in general. I've tried to do it at RDU coming in from the north along the single-carriageway access route and though I eventually pulled it off I would not do it again nor recommend it.

Yeah, we should probably define "can be accessed on foot" as having some sort of pedestrian infrastructure. Technically you *can* walk along the side of the road to pretty much any airport, there's no law saying you can't as far as I know, but at most US airports (like RDU in your example) it's not really safe to do so due to the lack of infrastructure for pedestrians.

Pisa Airport. I walked from the terminal to the Lean Tower; it is not much more than 30 minutes. There are residential buildings just next to the airport so it is only "city walking", not crossing or walking through major roads.

Innsbruck. The airport is also somehow in the middle of a residential area and not far from the city center.

Antwerp as mentioned above.

Domestic terminal at SYD is accessible on foot....not sure about the international terminal.

MDW easily by foot, really just a regular main street in the city, ORD still possible but some major approach roads.

SNA should have better pedestrian access given how close everything is. It's Orange County though, so the expectation is everyone will take every trip in a car. Try to walk in or out of there and you'll quickly learn that the place was not designed with pedestrians in mind.

OAK has good pedestrian access that connects to trails at Oyster Bay Regional Shoreline.

SCQ83 wrote:

Pisa Airport. I walked from the terminal to the Lean Tower; it is not much more than 30 minutes. There are residential buildings just next to the airport so it is only "city walking", not crossing or walking through major roads.

Innsbruck. The airport is also somehow in the middle of a residential area and not far from the city center.

Antwerp as mentioned above.

I’ve also done the walk from the centre of Pisa to the airport - the only time I’ve ever walked to an airport! Very pleasant amble.

Unless there's a way I don't know about, I don't think you can walk to DEN.

A lot of smaller (and some large) airports are fairly easily accessed on foot. I've walked to SAN, DCA, BOO, ZQN and NSN (off the top of my head).

well I guess it depends if you purely mean to reach the airport or really go there with your luggage to catch a flight. But I walked several time from my home in Hongkong (Tungchung) to the airport

As far as I can tell, it's a split decision for MSP. Terminal 1 does not seem to be accessible at all by foot (not even using Northwest Drive to avoid the freeway), but you can walk to Terminal 2. But you can take the public train between the terminals for free (even though it charges a fare elsewhere) if you really wanted to get to Terminal 1 on foot without paying a penny.

Does biking count? The last few times I went to RTM from my hometown of Delft I just took my bike. It's a 20min ride and biking with a cabin sized back isn't really hard.

You can walk to the Delta terminal at LGA with a little creativity. There's a park between Grand Central Parkway and the water which has a sidewalk to the Cell Phone lot they're building/have built which you cross that and boom, you're at the arrivals level.

Can't walk to Osaka airport from anywhere as it is in the middle of the sea.

FlyRow wrote:

Does biking count? The last few times I went to RTM from my hometown of Delft I just took my bike. It's a 20min ride and biking with a cabin sized back isn't really hard.

Even if it doesn't, it's an easy walk from the airport to the adjacent neighborhood Landzicht or even to Overschie.

As a matter of fact, I think of all Dutch airports Rotterdam is the easiest to access on foot. All Dutch commercial airports can be accessed on foot, although in some cases you'd have to walk on the bike path.

Insertnamehere wrote:

You can walk to the Delta terminal at LGA with a little creativity. There's a park between Grand Central Parkway and the water which has a sidewalk to the Cell Phone lot they're building/have built which you cross that and boom, you're at the arrivals level.

Just based on looking at Google Earth, it looks like you can walk to Terminal B as well. You can cross Grand Central Parkway via the 94th Street overpass. I see crosswalks that lead from 94th Street into a parking garage. Walk to the opposite corner of the garage and it looks like there's a pedestrian bridge that leads to Terminal B.

YTZ, obviously.

I walked to BMA (Stockholm Bromma) once from a nearby hotel. The airport access road has good sidewalk the whole way.

I've walked to BAH, BRU, CIA, CPH, DAC, DXB and TLS. Easy.

It's relatively easy to walk into Marrakech from RAK. You have to skirt around the airport boundary - the terminal is on the wrong side of the airport - but it saves having to deal with taxi drivers. You can stop off at the Menara Gardens along the way.

As mentioned up the page Pisa is easy. The train station is on the way to the centre of town, so you can land, see the leaning tower, and then take the train to nearby Lucca, which is a lot nicer.

SFJ is an invigorating hike from JHS. It has limited transport links otherwise.

Asian airports are often built on an island which makes it hard to access, but walking may still possible though hostile/uncomfortable and requires walking on the side of busy highways, cycling better (which is tolerated in all of Japan) but it's a bit awkward unless you work at the airport (e.g. not sure if they thought about passenger cycle parking).

It's presumed that there will be very few people willing to walk long distances to an isolated island. Cycling is widespread in Japan so that's always possible for employees but not sure about passengers and other Asian countries (SEA and Taiwan is certainly possible by motorcycle).

Many airports in Spain you cannot walk to, or only on dirt roads.

ACE, LPA and TFS are such examples. ACE has no footpath off the airport. TFS is in the middle of nowhere, access by car only. From LPA you can walk to Ojos de Garza if you know the way, but it is not a clear footpath.

CDT is in the middle of nowhere. You can get there on a dirt road but it is a long walk. GRO and REU have no foot access either.

Even in BCN it is not easy and you must know the way.

In Italy BGY has easy foot access to the city. MXP does not, you cannot walk off MXP.

You can easily access Puerto Vallarta (PVR) by foot
Though typically it's so darned hot it's not a lot of fun....the road lacks any kind of shade

The first airport that I thought of was LUA.

Jutlander wrote:

Many airports in Spain you cannot walk to, or only on dirt roads.

ACE, LPA and TFS are such examples. ACE has no footpath off the airport. TFS is in the middle of nowhere, access by car only. From LPA you can walk to Ojos de Garza if you know the way, but it is not a clear footpath.

CDT is in the middle of nowhere. You can get there on a dirt road but it is a long walk. GRO and REU have no foot access either.

Even in BCN it is not easy and you must know the way.

In Italy BGY has easy foot access to the city. MXP does not, you cannot walk off MXP.

There is a dirt road leading away from TFS and I used it in December to get to the South side of the airport. The dirt road itself is okay, but the passage around the approach lights is rather adventurous to say the least.

At BCN, you can walk to the old terminals where they mainly deal with easyJet and other LCCs these days. From there, take the bus to the other terminal in case you would want to access the new one.

I flew to HKT airport in Phuket in my swim suit and flip flops and walked straight to the beach at the end of the runway to watch all kinds of heavies land SXM style. What a delight!

lugie wrote:

As for Europe, I could also imagine MAD and CDG to be rather tough in that regard, LIS should be easily reachable though.

Most of CDG is impossible, just Terminal 2G, the FedEx terminal and cargo south are within pedestrian reach.

Köln, Berlin Tegel, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Geneva, they are all easy. All airports in Switzerland seem well connected via foot and bicycle paths, even Basel which is in France but has an access road with a dedicated foot and bicycle path.

One can easily walk from SDU to Rio de Janeiro's city centre.

On occasion I have seen people walking to and from the cruise terminal at Fort Lauderdale to Hollywood/Fort Lauderdale airport with their luggage in tow. I would never do it but there are always those who are trying to save a buck or two by avoiding a cab or rideshare.

Have walked from MAD T1 to my hotel in Barajas city centre. Easy 20 min. walk. T4 is a very different story...far far away.

I really enjoy walking into a city from an airport - especially if I'm travelling light, have arrived early in the morning and want to find somewhere local for breakfast along the way. Sometimes it's also the challenge of getting some extra steps in, or just sticking two fingers up to the hawkish taxi drivers.

I'm sure I'm forgetting others, but these ones come to mind immediately:

BLK (Blackpool, UK) - Something like a 20 minute walk, easy safe route on pavements.
BUK (Bukhara, Uzbekistan) - Got bored of the taxi drivers asking silly amounts. The dusty airport road leads straight downtown, so I walked it in about an hour, with a quick food stop.
FPO (Freeport, Bahamas) - 30 minute walk into the centre, or what was left of it after the Hurricane tore through. Very sad to see the abandonment.
GVA (Geneva, Switzerland) - Nice walk through the suburbs and city on safe pavements. Don't recall how long it took, but it wasn't that far.
IEV (Kiev, Ukraine) - 30 minute stroll through the city on pavements, or less if you just head to the nearest metro. Plenty of cafe en route for food.
KTM (Kathmandu, Nepal) - Didn't actually fly, but I walked out from the city to see the Turkish A330 in the museum. Not exactly pavements everywhere, but that's Kathmandu for you at the best of times.
LCY (London, UK) - An hour to London, or less to Canary Wharf. I usually walk via Barrier Park, which I really enjoy spending time in.
LIS (Lisbon, Portugal) - Straight down the hill into the city, really easy to walk and lots of reasonable places to eat nearby.
LTN (Luton, UK) - Half an hour or so. But yeah... it's still Luton when you get into the centre.
LWO (Lviv, Ukraine) - Went to get the trolley bus as usual, but a driver appeared to be intoxicated and was having an argument with police. Being a trolley bus, you can't just drive around the vehicle ahead, so there was a backlog. Instead, I walked into the city - probably took an hour or so.
LYR (Longyearbyen, Svalbard) - It only takes about half an hour to walk, and good opportunity to take some interesting pictures of the polar bear signs.
MAH (Mahon, Spain) - Bus and taxi drivers went on strike, so I walked to city to get shopping (30 minutes), then a friend picked me up. Another time when they were striking, I walked the 7km to my old house there - was a really nice early spring day. Took about 4 hours.
NAS (Nassau, Bahamas) - Walk down to the coast and then along the shoreline road. There wasn't always a path, but plenty of nice views along the way
NQY (Newquay, UK) - Another favourite, follow the spectacular coastal path for an hour or two, then turn inland at Watergate Bay or, if you really want to stretch your legs, Mawgan Port (3-4h walking). Shame to roads have no path, so it can be quite dangerous in summer traffic.
PLH (Plymouth, UK) Being in the city, this one was super easy - about an hour walking on pavements.
PMI (Palma, Spain) Getting down to the waterfront wasn't that clear, but then it was relatively easy to walk along the beach / seafront to Palma. Maybe three hours, but that was with a beer stop.
RKV (Reykjavik, Iceland) - 10 minutes or so, it's right in the city which is great
THF (Berlin, Germany) - Another brilliant little city airport. Took me perhaps 1.5h, but I made stops on the way.
UDJ (Uzhorod, Ukraine) - 20 minutes through the suburbs.
USH (Ushuaia, Argentina) - About 45 minutes beside the road, but I did have a really heavy backpack and rucksack on. I think I wanted to walk this one as I'd already walked to the world's most Northerly commercial airport.
VEY (Westmann Islands, Iceland) - 15 minute walk down the hill to the town. Longer if you walk via the volcano!
YTZ (Toronto, Canada) - 5 minutes, it's so convenient.
YYT (St John's, Canada) - Difficult to say how long it took. I'd left my hotel in the morning, then after some sightseeing I hiked along the coast, turned inland and walked to the airport. Think I walked about 20km that day in total.

Airports that i've walked to: BRE, LIS, BRR, RMI, CPH, TSA, LCY, NCE, RKV, SAN, IPC, ANR, BLL, PSA, LCA

hongkongflyer wrote:

Can't walk to Osaka airport from anywhere as it is in the middle of the sea.

Actually Osaka Airport (ITM) is in a densely populated area, and you CAN walk there. Kansai Airport (KIX) is in the middle of Osaka Bay.

You can walk to PIT via the Montour Trail extension. The bad news is that the Montour Trail doesn't particularly go anywhere useful if the goal is to get from the downtown area to the airport; the Trail starts at a small nondescript parking lot on the Ohio River, if memory serves. (It's been years since I ran on the trail.)

In the other direction, the Montour hooks up with the Great Allegheny Passage trail. So in theory you could walk, or bike, from Washington DC to Pittsburgh Airport(!).

(After doing a little more digging before posting, it appears that the G.A.P. hooks up with a trail that can get you to Point State Park in the center of the Burgh. So yes, you could with sufficient incentive walk from downtown to the airport.)

I've walked to HAM and USH. I could claim NRT if we were hair-splitting, but really it was just to get to one of the airport hotels. Edit: I've walked (run) to BGI but not to catch an airplane. I guess that doesn't count.

gabrielchew wrote:

Airports that i've walked to: BRE, LIS, BRR, RMI, CPH, TSA, LCY, NCE, RKV, SAN, IPC, ANR, BLL, PSA, LCA

hongkongflyer wrote:

Can't walk to Osaka airport from anywhere as it is in the middle of the sea.

Actually Osaka Airport (ITM) is in a densely populated area, and you CAN walk there. Kansai Airport (KIX) is in the middle of Osaka Bay.

Actually I mean KIX, sorry for the confusions

SFO. In the early 90's I used to live in San Bruno, CA just across the freeway from SFO. I used to walk down San Bruno Ave over the freeway to the long term parking lot next to United airlines MX base. From there I would get on the long term parking bus and ride it to work at the terminal. This was before the International terminal and the people mover was built. I haven't been to SFO in a long time so I don't know if walking would be feasible today.

Though I've never done it, pretty sure LIH is accessible by foot

You can walk to SAN where you can watch planes land and take off.

You can walk to DCA right now; there is a project in the works to dramatically improve the pedestrian connections to the airport.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/ ... _small.pdf

You can walk to Gatwick on foot from the local towns of Crawley & Horley (the latter being much closer of the two).

Ben

You CANNOT walk to The LHR central area anymore