As you know, there is a growing trend to compensate for our sprawling communities and growing waistlines by increasing personal physical activity. Walking more often, as opposed to driving, not only improves your health, but can save costly fuel expenses too. Also, you can see and enjoy more if you’re out and about!

Walk Score is a handy tool that can be used to size up how walk-able various areas are. You may already know how walk-able the area you live in is, but if you are thinking of moving your home or work to another location, checking out the scores on Walk Score can help you complete your homework about the area without driving or flying there yourself first. If you value the walk-ability of a location, then this tool is worth trying out. I’ve found it’s also fun to check scores on places I am going to visit for vacation when planning activities. Check it out! Oh, and there are also Google street views for obtaining more visual queues. It’s fun to see how your own neighborhood fares in walk-ability, too.

Obtain free walking ranking information on a U.S. town or city (also in Canada and the U.K. but less accurate) at Walk Score’s website: walkscore.com. What the the Walk Scores mean and how they are calculated are explained on the site too.