When I was in high school and college, though, I used to drive to think. It was partly to do with growing up in Texas (a big, spread-out state with lots of straight, empty highways) and also partly to do with privacy. If I wanted privacy, I would go out on the highway and drive. Living with parents, and later with roommates, a car was the only place where I knew that I wouldn't be bothered. In a small town, walking means making yourself conspicuous, which isn't conducive to contemplation. You have to be in a dense city or a rural area to achieve solitude through walking.
Given that driving used to serve the same purpose for me, I wonder if the physical effects of walking are important. For me, the most important factor was suspending the constant vigilance of being around other people. Always knowing you could be interrupted, knowing you might need to put on a mask at a moment's notice, how can you really think? Walking and driving require a very low level of engagement with the outside world, but some engagement, which intermittently rises and falls as you encounter interesting sights or an occasional challenge such as a puddle to walk around, another car on the road that must be paid attention to, or a choice of going right or left. (Driving in the city usually doesn't work. Safety demands too much attention.) If I were to name the most important factors, I would include solitude, freedom from vigilance, and occasional non-threatening interruptions of one's train of thought.
I now spend as much time walking around the office as I do cranking code or writing on my desk. Over the years, I started recognising other habitual pacers in the department. We joke about forming a society and lobbying for a pacing room.
I don't know whether it's the walking, the solitude (not many people walking around where I live and I only have to cross about 5 roads in a 4mi walk), the soft music I walk to, or what, but it works wonders.
As you your point: I'm definitely in a minority here. Unfortunately the other guys have mostly forgotten how to use their legs and complain even when having to walk a couple blocks down the road to fetch food. It's quite sad, actually :/
If you are a busy/frantic person, walking isn't a very intense way of exercising, and doesn't translate to an achievement game as easily as running, lifting weights, etc. If you don't have a nice area to walk in, I can see not ever really understanding the appeal. I would probably still walk now if I moved to a metro area, but I might not have picked up the habit in the first place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solvitur_ambulando
I don't know latin, but I'm assuming ambulare is an infinitive where adding 'ando' (if this is like Spanish) is equivalent to 'ing'.
edit: thanks for sharing the saying, I quite like it
Driving a car at night comes as a close second, but without the added benefits of exercise.
Long train journeys are also surprisingly effective, as I've recently found out.
For me walking is more conducive to careful thinking than any other activity, and taking a walk has frequently proven to be the best way to work on my hardest problems, deepest mysteries, and most stressful situations. Do others walk to think?
Having worked with several startups over the past 16 years, I'll make the observation that I've been in a tiny minority on this count, and I find myself wondering what kind of situational & cultural biases in the startup world work against walking as a way of thinking. Keyboards, cars, commutes, an obsession with faster-is-better, craving novelty, fear of "missing the window." What else?