The concept behind Charlotte Ward’s X account is simple. Every day, she goes for a long walk, usually through the lush woods near her home in Yorkshire, England, before she sits down for dinner. And every night she posts three photos of the scenery from her walk, along with a photo of what she ate.

Sometimes Ward, 22, heads to the Yorkshire Dales to hike the highlands, other days she traverses the streets of London, but the result is always the same: three photos of the walk, and one of what she ate. It has been a perfect recipe for her growing audience.

Since starting her @hikingshawty account in April 2024, she has amassed more than 170,000 followers and an audience of nearly 200,000 in an X community she created called “today i walked… .” Many of the people who come across her posts express their desire to live a quieter life like hers, spending time in nature and baking cakes from scratch.

For Ward, who started her account to share photos of her hikes with friends, the attention has been surprising.

“It’s kind of crazy,” she said in an interview. “I posted the first one and it got a few hundred likes, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s cool.’ And then by the time I got to the third post, that one went completely viral. I can’t believe how much it’s taken off.”

Ward said she started the daily walk during the COVID-19 lockdowns with her father, Sean.

“My dad has always loved walking and hiking, and he would drag us on hikes when we were younger, but I didn’t really enjoy it,” she said. “But then one night, he was just like, ‘Do you want to come for a walk with me?’ And we’ve just been walking ever since.”

Though she walks with him when he’s not working, she takes a majority of her hikes alone, strapping on a pair of Hoka Anacapa hiking sneakers and setting off into the woods.

By the standards of today’s AI-driven internet, her posts can feel like a return to a less complicated time — before the concept of “posting ennui” kicked in — when Instagram was filled with photos of French toast and grainy sunset pics and X was a place to post low-stakes jokes or share links to interesting articles.

But Ward’s purpose, to stay in touch with friends, is exactly social media’s original intended use. And her account’s popularity is evidence of nostalgia for an era before optimized algorithms.

Her posts have inspired others to go outside and share photos of their walks and the food and drink they consume afterward, with posts in the “today i walked…” community coming from all over the world.

Ward’s account has given her, too, a chance to appreciate her surroundings.

“Before I started walking, especially around where I live, I honestly wanted to move,” she said. “I was like: ‘I don’t like England. There’s nothing here for me.’ But as I’ve started walking around here, there’s no place I would rather live.”

https://www.dailypress.com/2025/10/18/long-walks-good-meals-social-media/