About a year and a half ago, I became one of Those People who track how many steps they walk each day. I know there’s nothing magical about the daily 10,000-step target, but it’s a fun little pastime, made more fun by the fact that I surpass 10,000 most days without really trying.

That’s because I live in Manhattan, with a dog to walk, errands to run and a commute that usually consists either of a subway ride and then a walk across Central Park, or a bike ride mostly through the park during which I occasionally go slowly enough that the steps app on my phone thinks I’m running. (It also doesn’t hurt that the nearest coffee here at Bloomberg’s New York headquarters is half a block away from my desk.)

Away from home, hitting 10,000 has proved much harder. There have been exceptions, such as visits to San Francisco and Mexico City during which I walked even more than I usually do in New York. But stays in the Vermont and California countryside, the suburbs of San Francisco and Washington, and the islands of Hawaii and Oahu all dragged down my average (10,506 steps a day since I started; 11,300 over the past year).