Best Walking in New York

This list represents the most popular walking in New York. Use this list to plan your next New York walking trip. Select a state and/or activity below to find even more top trails.

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#1. Brooklyn Bridge and Brooklyn Heights Promenade


“What a lovely view from, heaven looks at you from, the Brooklyn Bridge,” sang Frank Sinatra in the 1947 film It Happened in Brooklyn. There are other ways to enter Brooklyn, but none is as famous (or…
From the guidebook "Walking Brooklyn"
Brooklyn, NY - Walking - 2.25 miles
Published by Wilderness Press

#2. Coney Island and Brighton Beach


Long before Vegas and Orlando, Coney Island was America’s playground. And by the time places like Vegas and Orlando were booming, Coney Island—the progenitor of every theme-park destination and beach…
From the guidebook "Walking Brooklyn"
Brooklyn, NY - Walking - 4 miles
Published by Wilderness Press

#3. Around Prospect Park


This is a lengthy walk from the westernmost to easternmost point of Prospect Park. It’s no straight line, and you never set foot inside the park. Instead, the walk skirts the park, taking you through…
From the guidebook "Walking Brooklyn"
Brooklyn, NY - Walking - 5.25 miles
Published by Wilderness Press

#4. Williamsburg


Williamsburg’s 21st-century reinvention as hipster haven Billyburg occurred after decades of poverty and neglect. It’s only the latest transformation for an area that’s had many identities. From a f…
From the guidebook "Walking Brooklyn"
Brooklyn, NY - Walking - 5.75 miles
Published by Wilderness Press

#5. East New York and Canarsie Pier


In 1835, a Connecticut businessman named John Pitkin bought up land in the eastern reaches of Brooklyn with plans to create a city to rival Manhattan: East New York. An economic bulwark and employer o…
From the guidebook "Walking Brooklyn"
Brooklyn, NY - Walking - 5.75 miles
Published by Wilderness Press

#6. Bedford-Stuyvesant


Bedford-Stuyvesant, the district that made history by electing the first black woman to the U.S. Congress (Shirley Chisholm), had become synonymous with “ghetto” by the 1970s. Comedian Chris Rock now…
From the guidebook "Walking Brooklyn"
Brooklyn, NY - Walking - 5 miles
Published by Wilderness Press

#7. Cypress Hills and Highland Park


“Only the Dead Know Brooklyn,” goes the title of a short story by Thomas Wolfe. He lived way over west in Cobble Hill, but the aphorism could apply to the easternmost nook of Brooklyn, where about 20…
From the guidebook "Walking Brooklyn"
Brooklyn, NY - Walking - 3 miles
Published by Wilderness Press

#8. Bay Ridge


Unlike many Brooklyn neighborhoods with “Hill” in their name, Bay Ridge actually sits on elevated ground—a bluff overlooking Upper New York Bay. It was the proximity to and views of the water that att…
From the guidebook "Walking Brooklyn"
Brooklyn, NY - Walking - 3.5 miles
Published by Wilderness Press

#9. Greenpoint


Greenpoint was one of Brooklyn’s centers of the “black arts,” with more than 50 oil refineries and 20 glass factories in operation in the late 19th century. But industry was on the decline by the mid-…
From the guidebook "Walking Brooklyn"
Brooklyn, NY - Walking - 3.75 miles
Published by Wilderness Press

#10. Bushwick


In tracing the history of Bushwick, one of the five original Kings County towns founded by the Dutch (as Boswijck in 1661), two words are bound to come up: beer and blackout. Bushwick’s brewing indust…
From the guidebook "Walking Brooklyn"
Brooklyn, NY - Walking - 4 miles
Published by Wilderness Press

#11. Prospect Park


Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, pioneers of landscape architecture and the urban parks movement in the United States, are most famous for Central Park but were prouder of Prospect Park. When t…
From the guidebook "Walking Brooklyn"
Brooklyn, NY - Walking - 4 miles
Published by Wilderness Press

#12. Brooklyn Heights


Brooklyn Heights needs no introduction, since it’s the one place in Brooklyn likely to have been visited by tourists and residents of the other boroughs. It’s even recognizable to those who haven’t be…
From the guidebook "Walking Brooklyn"
Brooklyn, NY - Walking - 3 miles
Published by Wilderness Press

#13. Fort Hamilton to Bensonhurst


New Utrecht was one of the five original towns established by the Dutch in the 17th century in what would eventually become the city, then borough, of Brooklyn. This walk includes present-day neighbor…
From the guidebook "Walking Brooklyn"
Brooklyn, NY - Walking - 5 miles
Published by Wilderness Press

#14. Downtown Brooklyn


Aside from those Brooklynites still squawking about the “mistake of ’98,” Downtown holds the most reminders that Brooklyn used to be a separate city: government buildings, a concentration of shops and…
From the guidebook "Walking Brooklyn"
Brooklyn, NY - Walking - 2.5 miles
Published by Wilderness Press

#15. Flatbush and Midwood


Only a few neighborhood names are instantly recognized by nonresidents. The Left Bank is one. The French Quarter another. In Brooklyn, Flatbush has earned that honor. Non–New Yorkers got to know Flatb…
From the guidebook "Walking Brooklyn"
Brooklyn, NY - Walking - 5.5 miles
Published by Wilderness Press

#16. Dumbo and Vinegar Hill


In the past decade, artists and dot-commers have turned this no-man’s-land down under the Manhattan Bridge overpass into another Soho, converting warehouses into trendy residential and cultural venues…
From the guidebook "Walking Brooklyn"
Brooklyn, NY - Walking - 2.25 miles
Published by Wilderness Press

#17. Boerum Hill and Cobble Hill


Begin near a large mall of today’s most recognizable chain stores. Cross the street and you are transported into the 19th century. Boerum Hill and Cobble Hill, adjacent neighborhoods south of Atlantic…
From the guidebook "Walking Brooklyn"
Brooklyn, NY - Walking - 2.75 miles
Published by Wilderness Press

#18. Clinton Hill


In the late 19th century, Clinton Hill was the most prestigious address in Brooklyn after Brooklyn Heights. Charles Pratt, Brooklyn’s wealthiest resident and the owner of Greenpoint-based Astral Oil,…
From the guidebook "Walking Brooklyn"
Brooklyn, NY - Walking - 1.75 miles
Published by Wilderness Press

#19. Carroll Gardens and Gowanus


The “Carroll” comes from Declaration of Independence signatory Charles Carroll; the “Gardens” from the neighborhood design conceived by surveyor Richard Butts in 1846. The houses’ deep front yards hav…
From the guidebook "Walking Brooklyn"
Brooklyn, NY - Walking - 2 miles
Published by Wilderness Press

#20. Marine Park, Gerritsen Beach, and Mill Basin


Marine Park, Gerritsen Beach, Mill Basin . . . these are places unfamiliar to a lot of New Yorkers. Located on a peninsula of southeastern Brooklyn, unserved by the subway, these are traditional, fami…
From the guidebook "Walking Brooklyn"
Brooklyn, NY - Walking - 6.25 miles
Published by Wilderness Press