I've lived in Austin for 9 years and haven't seen most of it

I should go outside more often.

• #78 ·
• 26 Feb 2026 ·
• Other

There's this guy who has walked every single street in Manhattan.

His name is Jeremy Maluf. He's an avid traveler who walks 30,000 steps/day and keeps everything he owns in a backpack. Jeremy is super cool and—in the nicest way possible—completely insane. But he's inspired me to...

1. Walk and run more

In 2025, I averaged 6,600 steps/day, which is... not great. I chalk it up to being a busy college student. Now, I do make a point to walk (not scooter) to all my classes, org meetings, and events on campus. But UT campus is pretty small, so I don't spend a ton of time walking. I also study a lot.

But I could definitely walk more. Every 20-minute YouTube video I watch could instead be 2,000 steps—when I'm outside, actually living life and improving my health. My goal for 2026 is to average 10,000+ steps/day.

I'm also competitive, and I figure there's no reason why I can't get to 10k steps/day if Jeremy does 30k steps/day. I can walk 6,000 steps/hour. I can certainly squeeze 30 extra minutes out of each day to get +3k steps.

2. Explore my city

I've lived in Austin since 2017, and yet I still haven't explored large swaths of the city. This is rather silly: I haven't seen most of my home city even though I've been here for almost 10 years. Jeremy has walked every street in NYC in 10 years!

Yes, Austin is bigger than Manhattan—but not by much. I constructed this haphazard black area that contains 90% of the cool stuff in Austin.^[1] The black area is actually slightly smaller than Manhattan, too!^[2] source: google mymaps

I'm unpleasantly surprised by how little I've actually explored on foot. I believe the best way to explore a city is by walking or running through its streets. There's something special about experiencing a city's sights, sounds, and smells through walking/running that is hard to replicate when you're driving or riding a bus.

I'm trying to explore this area more. I've started training for the 10K Longhorn Run in April. My friend Kevin and I have recently been running south from UT campus and exploring running routes around the river. It's been really fun because we don't really plan our routes beforehand. We just run and find a way! I've seen a lot of cool places in my last couple of runs.

I don't plan to walk every street or explore every nook and cranny in that black area. But I should try to explore more so I can understand Austin better.

3. Travel more

Maybe it's just college student wanderlust, but I've felt a big urge to travel recently. I've realized that I'm in college and I can basically do whatever I want. I should travel more—I'm young! This is the easiest and best time of my life to travel.

I'm relatively minimalist, so I'm capable of one-bagging short trips.^[3] Jeremy explains why one-bag travel is so great:

Onebag travel is unquestionably the best way to travel. Traveling without luggage removes just about every pain point associated with flying, such as checking bags, overhead compartments, bag fees, waiting in line, and needing to drop off luggage before an adventure. Just stroll into the airport an hour before your flight, and walk off your plane directly to your destination.

I've saved up some money from work. I can book a flight to NYC for a weekend. I can walk onto a plane in Austin on a Friday—with just my backpack—and a couple hours later walk into the greatest city in the world. How cool is that?

Conclusion

Jeremy Maluf has inspired me to walk more, explore my city more, and travel more. But more than that, he makes me want to be intentional with how I spend my days. I want to do things with my life and to resist the allure of comfortable, too-stable routine.

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