The route. Distance is houses × average spacing. Spacing should include the walk up a drive, the wait on the step and the return to the pavement, so 25–30 m per house is typical for a suburban street; a dense terrace can be 12–15 m and a rural lane can be 80 m. Walking time is distance ÷ speed. Door time is houses × dwell, and it usually dominates: forty doors at 45 seconds is half an hour of standing still.

Walking speed. A steady adult walks about 4.8 km/h, but a group of children in costumes, crossing roads and stopping to compare bags moves at roughly half that. 2.4–2.8 km/h is a realistic planning figure. The model assumes no breaks; add them yourself if you plan to stop at a party or a friend's house.

Sunset. The page estimates solar declination from the date, then the hour angle from latitude, giving day length. Sunset is solar noon plus half the day length. That ignores the equation of time (up to about 16 minutes), longitude within the time zone and elevation, so treat it as a planning estimate rather than an almanac value. If you already know the sunset time, set “solar noon” so that the two agree, or simply read the dark-walking minutes as approximate.

Stamina. A common rule of thumb is that a child manages roughly half a kilometre per year of age, and that under-eights are usually done after 60–90 minutes. The tool flags the route when distance or time exceeds those bands — not because a longer route is unsafe, but because a tired child at the far end of it is the one who gets carried.

Last reviewed: 2026-10-20. A planning aid for a family outing; follow local road-safety advice and go with your own judgement about your children and your streets.