Walking into memories

Tour guides share why exploring the city on foot is now one of the hottest trends despite the summer heat.

The summer weather may have been unbearably hot at times, but even this has not deterred many people from exploring the nooks and crannies of Shanghai through walking tours.

On lifestyle platform Xiaohongshu, the hashtag "Shanghai city walk" had over 30 million views at the time of writing, and is still trending, especially among young people.

The term "city walk" is believed to have originated from London, where London Walks — the world's oldest urban walking tour company — was founded half a century ago by Keith Baverstock, an Australian.

Although there is no official definition of "city walk", it basically refers to a walking tour around the city that is usually themed around topics like history, culture, architecture, food and music.

According to a report released by DT Finance earlier this year, more than 80 percent of the 1,505 respondents surveyed indicated that they would like to try city walks.

The report also stated that the top five objectives of city walkers were to find the following: cultural scenes, food and restaurants, natural landscapes, outfits and local life.

As one of the first Chinese cities that was opened to the world in modern China, Shanghai is renowned for its unique blend of the East and the West.