LOS ANGELES — With COVID spiking and businesses curfewed, it might be a good time to get some fresh air and take a really, really, really long walk — maybe one that stretches for 16 miles and takes about eight hours, like the Great Los Angeles Walk that’s happening Saturday.

“It could be a therapeutic way to end the year,” said Michael Schneider, who has been leading people on the annual Great LA Walk across the city for the past 14 years. 

What You Need To Know

  • The Great Los Angeles Walk is taking place Saturday, November 21

  • Participants in the free annual event will go on a self-guided, 15.6-mile hike down Wilshire Blvd. from downtown LA to Santa Monica

  • Due to COVID, there will not be a formal starting time, and walkers are encouraged to socially distance and wear masks

  • The walk is expected to take about eight hours

During ordinary, non-COVID times, the free event usually inspires about 500 participants to lace up their walking shoes and trek across the city. This weekend, that trek will be 15.6 miles from downtown L.A. along Wilshire Blvd. all the way to Santa Monica and will forgo a formal start time in an effort to encourage social distancing.

“Everyone needs a diversion right now,” said Schneider, who had thought about canceling but decided the walk must go on. “This seemed to be a safe way to allow people to let off some steam and stretch their legs after being cooped up inside and being stressed for so much of this year.”

Schneider started the Great LA Walk to celebrate his tenth anniversary of living in Los Angeles. “It’ll be 25 years next year, so this walk has become my annual love letter and tribute to Los Angeles and my way of just trying to get people to explore and get to know this city a little better and appreciate how amazing LA really is,” said Schneider, who moved to LA from Chicago and is now a senior editor at Variety magazine.

While last year’s walk went from Arcadia through Pasadena into Highland Park and on to downtown L.A., Schneider switches up the routes. This year is a throwback to the first Great L.A. Walk in 2006, which took place along Wilshire Blvd. 

Schneider originally picked L.A.’s main east-west thoroughfare after reading a book that said walking the entire length of Wilshire was a great way to get a feel for the city’s different communities. 

“There’s a lot of great architecture,” he said. “Everything people love about L.A., you can explore and witness walking down Wilshire.”

Using a downloadable map available at GreatLAWalk.com, walkers will start their journeys at the intersection with Union Ave. and continue on a route that will take them past the former Bullock’s Wilshire department store to the Wiltern Theatre, Westwood United Methodist Church, and the Santa Monica Bay Woman’s Club, among other sights, before ending at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel.

Schneider, who has walked the length of Wilshire several times already, is looking forward to discovering what he’s never noticed before. “Maybe there’s a new building I haven’t seen yet, a new sculpture, a new mural, a new restaurant. This is a lively street that’s forever changing.”

From start to finish takes about eight hours, but it could take longer. “I remind people every year this is not a race. It’s not a jog. It’s about taking time, looking around, taking detours, maybe seeing something on a side street,” he said. “This is where people uncover things they never knew existed because they were driving.”

Since its founding, the walk has always taken place the Saturday before Thanksgiving, in anticipation of the usual holiday gorge fest, at a time when the city has some extra sparkle to it with festive decorations, and the weather has cooled down.

What will be different this year is the group gathering at the walk’s start. “Everyone will be walking on their own accord and at their own time, so it won’t be quite as communal,” Schneider said, “but that’s the reality of what we’re going through right now.”