she walks hard for the money
October 1, 2014 6:02 AM   Subscribe

What kinds of jobs require a lot of (outdoor) walking?

I like to walk a lot (a whole lot), and am wondering if there are ways I can pick up some extra cash and be paid for it somehow. What kinds of jobs require a lot of walking as part of the job’s function? Preferably outdoors?
posted by raztaj to Work & Money (34 answers total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
Dog walking.
posted by royalsong at 6:06 AM on October 1, 2014


Dog walking
Mail delivery
Flyer delivery
Gas/electric meter reader
posted by VioletU at 6:08 AM on October 1, 2014 [5 favorites]


A friend of mine works with local government to negotiate with landowners on keeping public footpaths open. That involves a lot of walking through attractive landscapes.
posted by biffa at 6:14 AM on October 1, 2014 [2 favorites]


Long shot, and pretty specific interest requirements: Check out nature centers near you, they may need part-time per-diem outdoor educators. If you have a background working with kids/the public/teaching, they may want to hire you on a per-diem basis as an environmental educator. You walk around outside teaching about nature.

I do this/did this. One day I walked 6 miles.
posted by Guess What at 6:15 AM on October 1, 2014 [2 favorites]


surveyor / gis / road construction
posted by nickggully at 6:18 AM on October 1, 2014 [4 favorites]


Outdoor security patrol.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:22 AM on October 1, 2014


Tour guide.
posted by hooray at 6:22 AM on October 1, 2014 [3 favorites]


I create walking guides for a smartphone app. I walk, tracking the route with GPS, and take photos and then write up the walk when I get home. Maybe there's something like this available where you are.
posted by Solomon at 6:24 AM on October 1, 2014 [3 favorites]


If not for the outdoor part, I would say just about any retail job, and especially big box retail. I never wore a pedometer/fitbit when I did retail but friends who do routinely put up 5-10 miles in a work day.

For outdoor walking... maybe retail in a garden center?
posted by mskyle at 6:24 AM on October 1, 2014


Golf caddy.
posted by jbickers at 6:25 AM on October 1, 2014 [2 favorites]


I saw a couple of people walking through my campus with the Google maps backpack. They were paid to walk around all day long, and travelled from city to city to do so. No idea how you get that job, though.
posted by procrastination at 6:34 AM on October 1, 2014 [3 favorites]


Not sure how easy it is to pick up this job and it probably varies city to city, but I see parking enforcement officers doing a lot of walking (I like in a small, compact town).
posted by carrioncomfort at 6:37 AM on October 1, 2014


Many field science jobs. In parts of environment/biology/geology science, it's possible to spend the majority of your career outdoors. These are typically survey, monitoring and assessment jobs. Most are private sector, but government has lots too.
posted by bonehead at 6:38 AM on October 1, 2014 [1 favorite]


Census taker
posted by radioamy at 7:00 AM on October 1, 2014


Ridgerunner
posted by lakersfan1222 at 7:16 AM on October 1, 2014


Some non-profits hire door-to-door canvassers or outreach people
posted by deadtrouble at 7:26 AM on October 1, 2014


Metermaid?
posted by poffin boffin at 7:46 AM on October 1, 2014


Metermaid?
Parking Enforcement Officer
posted by beagle at 7:49 AM on October 1, 2014 [4 favorites]


Park ranger
posted by overhauser at 7:52 AM on October 1, 2014 [1 favorite]


Survey interviewer
posted by OrangeDisk at 7:54 AM on October 1, 2014 [1 favorite]


A lot of local government jobs require being out meeting with the public in various capacities.
posted by vignettist at 8:16 AM on October 1, 2014


mymbleth: Amazon warehouse picker.

Any warehouse picker - look for distribution centers, mail order places, things of that sort. I've visited such facilities for Toys R' Us and grocery stores, and they do a lot of walking. Downside: all indoors. Upside to everything other than Amazon's fulfillment centers: decent treatment and better pay


overhauser: Park ranger

And most other jobs for local, state or national parks.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:19 AM on October 1, 2014 [1 favorite]


Disney park cast member?
posted by Thorzdad at 8:20 AM on October 1, 2014 [1 favorite]


My spouse is a groundskeeper for a school district and he has a FitBit which tells him he walks about 10 miles a day.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 8:21 AM on October 1, 2014 [2 favorites]




Collecting donations for some non-profit charities used to be a way to get extra cash; it probably still is depending where you're located. Greenpeace used to have collectors, and I collected for the San Francisco Free Medical Clinic. Collectors were given a percentage of what they collected: back in the late '80s I could make about $40 (very variable of course, from zero to a hundred) from three hours walking.
posted by anadem at 8:38 AM on October 1, 2014


Geophysical survey tech. You basically walk back and forth across a piece of property, either wheeling a cart in front of you or dragging a box. You're just on one property, but you probably walk 50-500 transects across it, so you're walking most of the day. You might be able to find an outfit in your area that's willing to train you as a relief/fill-in tech, esp. if you're willing to work weekends.

Any sort of janitorial or building management work will involve a lot of walking.

If you have any colleges/universities or large apartment complexes in your area, they may hire people to do periodic walk-throughs of all or some of their units for a variety of reasons. (At apartments it's often mold inspections; at colleges it may be inspections for fire hazards. I've done both of these before.) Downside is that you generally have to know someone already to get the gig. And most of the walking is indoors, although if it's an apartment complex with outdoor stairwells it's not terrible.
posted by pie ninja at 8:44 AM on October 1, 2014 [1 favorite]


Shopping cart attendant. (And now I've fallen down this rabbit hole....)
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:53 AM on October 1, 2014


One of my friends had a job doing agricultural crop inspections - she would walk across grain fields in a prescribed pattern gathering samples of grain all the way. I don't know what this position is called, or how to get it.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 9:22 AM on October 1, 2014


Mail delivery in historical neighborhoods where you have to drop it at a slot in the door or similar instead of there being a mail box out at the street.

I lived in an old duplex where we had an old fashioned mail drop thing on our front porch and I talked one day to our mail delivery person. She parked at the end of the block stuff her bag with what was needed for this stretch and walked and hand delivered everything. She then walked back to her mail vehicle, drove to the next cross street, stuff her bag with mail for that block...rinse and repeat.

She logged a lot of miles on foot. And she looked it.
posted by Michele in California at 10:17 AM on October 1, 2014


This is not a key part of the job, but when I was young and a nanny, I spent hours walking strollers outside. It was great.
posted by three_red_balloons at 12:01 PM on October 1, 2014


Lawn mowing plus other plant nursery work.
posted by SemiSalt at 12:46 PM on October 1, 2014


gardening. my fitbit app also says I walk 8-10 miles a day
posted by sciencegeek at 1:53 PM on October 1, 2014


Marking utility lines on pavement, property, roadways. One follows the "dial before you dig" GIS and sprays paint onto the surface so construction workers don't inadvertently destroy stuff. Nothing but walking, and all you carry is the map and a paint can dispenser.
posted by Jesse the K at 2:28 PM on October 1, 2014 [1 favorite]


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