Photo by Elvert Barnes on Flickr.

Even the most hardened pedestrians can find themselves in areas where driving is the default way to get around. In those places, going for a walk can be a provocative act, met with stares and questions.

Still, some of us make the conscious choice to walk or bike somewhere even in places where it’s not obvious to others. Our contributors share some of their funnier stories of when people didn’t understand why they just didn’t drive.

David Versel: I typically walk up to the Metrobus stop for my morning commute, which is about 0.5 miles from my house in Springfield. I am ALWAYS the only adult pedestrian about, but there are usually middle school kids walking to or waiting at their school bus stop. I have gotten scared looks from these kids many times who probably think I’m a pedophile cruising school bus stops.

It’s just another casualty of car culture that suburban kids automatically assume that adults should always be in cars, and that those who aren’t are probably sex offenders.

Dan Reed: In high school, I usually walked to my friend’s house for a study group. One day we had an argument, as 15-year-olds often do, and I stormed out. As I unlocked the front door, her mother ran into the room in a frenzy.

“Where are you going!?” she asked, and I said I was walking home. (This is how far apart our houses were.)

“Don’t worry, I’ll give you a ride,” she said. I said it was okay, but she relented, and went back to get her keys. She came back and said, “Alright, let’s go.” I felt terrible asking her to go through the trouble, so I said “Um, I changed my mind and I’ll stay here,” and returned to sulk in the basement with my friends.

David Alpert: When I was in Los Angeles once, I was staying with family friends in Brentwood and was at an event on Wilshire Boulevard just south of Brentwood. When I was ready to leave, I realized that the cross street we were right near was also one of the main cross streets near their house, so I walked the approximately 1.2 miles to their house instead of calling for a ride.

When I got there they were flabbergasted that I had walked.

Matt Johnson: I can do ya one better. And this conversation did happen. Word for word.

The first time I was ever in LA, Ryan and I stayed at a hotel one block from the Vermont/Santa Monica subway station. We got in fairly late, and we really just wanted to go to bed, but we hadn’t eaten. On the one block walk from the station, we’d seen a few storefronts, but hadn’t really been paying a lot of attention.

So after we got situated in our room, we went down to the front desk, and I asked the receptionist…

Me: “Can you tell me are there any restaurants nearby?”

Receptionist: “Oh, sure. Let me call you a cab.”

Me: “Oh, no, no. We don’t want to go anyplace far away. Just something close by.”

Receptionist: “Yeah, there are lots of places. Let me call you a cab.” [picks up phone]

Me: “No, please don’t. We really just want someplace close. Is there any place within walking distance?”

[She looks puzzled]

Receptionist: “It’s really no trouble for me to call you a cab.”

Me: “We don’t want a cab. We just want to know if there are any restaurants nearby. Are there any restaurants within a block or two?”

Receptionist: “Yeah. There are a few places at the corner of Vermont and Santa Monica. Are you sure you don’t want me to call you a cab?”

Me: “Vermont and Santa Monica is a block away, right?”

Receptionist: “Yes.”

Me: “We’ll just walk. Thanks for your help.”

Receptionist: “Really, it’s no trouble to call a cab. Are you sure you don’t want one?”

The ironic thing is that LA (the LA Basin at least) is actually very walkable. The problem is that Angelenos don’t seem to know that.

I’ve ridden the 4/704 all the way from Union Station to the Santa Monica pier. And the density/urban form never drops below what you’d find in the Woodley Park commercial strip. That’s about the same distance as going from Metro Center to Rockville. There are a few places were the walkability isn’t great (Century City), but for the most part, the sidewalks are wide and complete, the street is buffered with parking, and buildings are built right to the street.

Dan Malouff: My example isn’t quite so bad. It’s a 0.4 mile walk from Fairfax City Hall to Fairfax Main Street. Who wants to guess how many people other than me walked to lunch, back when I worked in Fairfax?

Canaan Merchant: I used to walk to Fairfax City from GMU. It really freaked my roommates out. Thinking back, I have lots of examples of me having to explain that sometimes I preferred to walk for 20 minutes than drive 10 to get to places in Fairfax.

David Edmondson: In fairness to the drive-everywhere crowd, I definitely took the Metro from Mt. Vernon Square to Chinatown a number of times when I first moved to DC before I realized how close it actually is.