With Americans anxious to go out, walking tours pick up pace

With Americans anxious to go out, walking tours pick up pace

SeattlePI.com

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CINCINNATI (AP) — With an eerily quiet and empty stadium plaza behind him, the tour guide tried to help people picture what they would have seen there more than 160 years earlier.

His audience of eight, all on foot, peered over masks at maps as he described hundreds of groceries, saloons, blacksmiths and 100,000 people living across two square miles — one of the pre-Civil War United States' most congested areas. The area had an open secret then: It was filled with stations on the Underground Railroad for slaves trying to reach freedom. Today, they were walking those paths.

For so many Americans, this is a time of being cooped up, of being unable to interact with fellow humans and, in many cases, with the landscape itself. COVID-19 and its impact — more than 200,000 Americans dead — have kept many away from air travel, cruise ships and crowded beaches.

Enter a decidedly unplugged alternative, a very concrete antidote to a suddenly more virtual life: the walking tour. Maybe not the most exciting outlet, but far better than being surrounded by the same four walls.

“Our mental health matters also, and it’s very important for us ... when we’re really feeling extremely alienated from each other and feeling trapped in our homes, to walk our streets, in the safest way possible,” said Rebecca Manski of Social Justice Tours in New York City.

Such tours have picked up in popularity for people seeking outdoor social activity while maintaining health safety precautions and staying in small groups. The Cincinnati walking tour, for example, was among several offered in recent months by the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame & Museum. The goal: to offset a pandemic-abbreviated baseball season that didn't allow fans in the ballpark.

Normally, Bob Doherty, 61, said, his family would have been inside the stadium that...

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