Off Beat

This guy walked to Logan Airport from Cambridge. Here’s how he did it.

Sam Westby took his social media followers along for the journey when he set out on foot for Logan last week.

April 23, 2026 | 9:44 AM

2 minutes to read

Whether voyaging to Logan Airport by bridge, tunnel, or T, it can be a bit of a trek to catch a flight out of Boston. But however unpleasant your Logan commute may be, Sam Westby’s probably got you beat.

In his latest video, the Boston-area “bikefluencer” trades in his wheels and sets out on foot for the seven-plus-mile walk from Cambridge to Logan, journeying through Somerville, Everett, and Chelsea to avoid car-only tunnels. Last Wednesday’s walk took Westby almost two-and-a-half hours of moving time (according to Strava), but he made it to the airport in one piece.

“Turns out, it’s possible,” Westby wrote after the fact. “Would not recommend unless traffic on [the Massachusetts Turnpike] is really bad.”

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A post shared by Sam Westby (@samcwestby)

An avid cyclist who holds the Guinness World Record for the most U.S. states visited by bicycle in one week, Westby regularly documents his trips to Logan on two wheels. But while the airport walk was a matter of intellectual curiosity, the Logan bike rides were initially born of necessity when Westby — then a Northeastern University Ph.D. student — needed to catch a particularly early flight.

“The trains don’t run at 4 a.m., I felt bad asking my friends for a ride that early, and I didn’t want to spend the money on an Uber. That left biking,” he explained in an email interview. “Since then, it’s been a game to get to the airport in every possible way. Walking was the last mode I hadn’t tried.”

Walking and biking to the airport are both bad options, Westby clarified, though he found the walk slightly more pleasant because he said he didn’t have to worry about getting struck by a car. The first mile out of Central Square and the last half mile along the Boston Harborwalk were enjoyable, he said, but “the rest either had cars and trucks constantly or had no sidewalk.”

“Lots of people from East Boston walk to the airport, and I agree that that stretch is walkable,” Westby added. “The issue is for the people who live anywhere else. Since we can’t use the tunnels without a car, we have to go through East Somerville and Chelsea to get to East Boston.”

Westby’s preferred method of getting to Logan involves a bike ride to the MBTA’s Aquarium station, followed by a short ride on the Blue Line. Still, he hasn’t ruled out other experiments in alternate airport transportation.

“Someone mentioned kayaking from Cambridge to the airport,” he said. “So I’ll have to think about that one.”