citywalk

City walk

jīn tiān qù citywalk.今天去citywalk。Going on a citywalk today.

Citywalk, written in English inside Chinese sentences, means a slow walk around the streets of a city: old lanes, small shops, a café, no plan and no list of sights. It became a youth travel trend in China in 2023.

Took off: 2023
Started in: Xiaohongshu travel posts
Today: Now everyday Chinese

What it means

People say 去citywalk, “go on a citywalk”, or use the word as a verb. The Chinese translation is 城市漫步, “city stroll”, but many posts keep the English word.

The point is to see daily life, not famous sights. It is the opposite of 特种兵旅游, the rushed trip that tries to see everything in two days.

How people use it

It is common. Some people laugh at it as an English name for 轧马路 and 遛弯, the old words for strolling the streets. The Paper quoted the complaint that it is an old habit with a new foreign name.

Most people use it with no irony when they plan a slow day out with friends.

琦琦

明天有空吗？
míng tiān yǒu kòng ma?
Free tomorrow?
有，去哪里？
yǒu, qù nǎ li?
Yes, where to?
去老城区citywalk，随便走走
qù lǎo chéng qū citywalk, suí biàn zǒu zou
A citywalk in the old town. We’ll just wander.
好，走累了就喝咖啡
hǎo, zǒu lèi le jiù hē kā fēi
OK. When we get tired, coffee.

More examples

周末去武康路citywalk吧。
zhōu mò qù wǔ kāng lù citywalk ba.
Let’s go on a citywalk along Wukang Road this weekend.
说是citywalk，其实就是走了三个小时的路。
shuō shì citywalk, qí shí jiù shì zǒu le sān gè xiǎo shí de lù.
They call it a citywalk. Really we just walked for three hours.

Where it came from

The English term comes from guided walking tours in Britain. The Paper traced it to a London tour called City walk in 1997, and found the first citywalk note on Xiaohongshu in 2016.

The trend took off in 2023, with Shanghai in the lead. In March a blogger posted a walking route along Wukang Road and Anfu Road that about 20,000 people saved. Xiaohongshu notes on citywalk grew from about 270,000 in early June to about 470,000 by late July, according to The Paper.

By the October holiday, Sixth Tone reported, travel agencies and city tourism offices were offering citywalk routes of their own.

The original. There is no single image. Typical posts show a walking route on a map and photos of an old street, a café or a market. The Paper traced the trend in July 2023. The Paper (in Chinese)