I'm a big advocate of urban exploration – walking around and exploring new neighborhoods. It's the perfect green activity for the weekend. You get exercise, cut down your carbon footprint, and get to know your neighborhood.

As a recent transplant to LA, I came with reservations of my ability to explore without a car. Coming from the east coast and living in cities with widespread access to public transportation, I was pretty spoiled. However, to my surprise, LA can be a very pedestrian friendly city. And with the weather perfect year 'round, it's easy to plan a day to do it. Some of my favorite walking neighborhoods include West Hollywood, Silverlake, Beverly Hills, Downtown and Hollywood. All you need to do is check a bus or metro route and get on your way.

In general, here are some tips for planning a good walk:

· Bring water. Use a reusable bottle (duh).

· Wear comfortable shoes. I can't stress this enough. I once did a walk around Paris in loafers. I was hobbling like Quasimodo by the end of it.

· Aimlessly wander, but bring a map. Serendipity is fun, just be aware of your surroundings.

· Enjoy an urban oasis. Try to integrate some urban green spaces in your itinerary.

· Bring a camera. You never know what you're going to see.

I've found two websites that can plan a good walk:

Google Maps. They've recently introduced a function that gives you directions on how to get somewhere on foot.

Walkscore (http://www.walkscore.com/rankings/Los_Angeles). This website has a Google maps mashup that rates how walkable a neighborhood is and provides points of interest in the surrounding area.

For the really ambitious, here's the itinerary if you decided to walk from LA to New York.

At a rate of 3 miles an hour, 24 hours a day (apparently, it doesn't understand the concept of sleep), Google estimates that it would take about 38 days and 3 hours to walk the 2,800 miles. Good luck keeping up the pace through the Rockies.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=&saddr=los+angeles&daddr=new+york+city&sll
=40.720136,-74.010944&sspn=0.029273,0.063171&ie=UTF8&dirflg=w&z=4

Phillip Javellana
NBC.com Intern