New Walking Tour Reveals City In 5,000 Steps

Shana Schneider wants to help you take the guilt out of having to choose between squeezing in a workout and spending more time enjoying the city.

She says you can have both if you take a one-hour walk with her.

Schneider is the founder of Fitstyle by Shana, a company that helps people find time for fitness in their everyday life. On Thursday, Schneider took a small group of people on her signature ​“Fitstyle” walking tour, which is designed to help you get in at least 5,000 steps while checking out the sights around downtown New Haven.

The tour stepped off from the city’s Holiday Village pop-up shop at 163 Orange St., making its way first to the Ninth Square neighborhood. Schneider made sure to point out Barcade and the city’s own Path of Stars, which was designed by Yale University’s first woman to achieve tenure in the School of Art, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville.

“When did she receive that tenure?” Schneider asked the tour group. One person remarked that sadly it probably wasn’t that long ago and then guessed 2005.

Schneider said it wasn’t that recent. Levrant de Bretteville received tenure in 1990. The tour provides little tidbits as part of Schneider’s plan to help people ​“get to know all the nooks and crannies and interesting facts and things that you just didn’t know about New Haven,” she said.

A Southern California native, Schneider moved to the East Coast with her family and ultimately went on to graduate from Yale College. She has worked in the fitness industry as a group fitness instructor for the last decade while simultaneously working in communications, first at Yale and then at local tech company Technolutions.

She’d spent some years after graduation working in New York and then Pennsylvania before getting married and returning to New Haven. Schneider said she fell in love with the Elm City by exploring it on foot and realizing that it shares a quality she loved about Manhattan — walkability.

“I tell people that New Haven has everything New York has it’s just that it might just be one of everything, which actually makes it really accessible to me,” she said. ​“To get to know New Haven the way that I do and to kind of love it, you have to walk around, walk into the different shops and talk to people and kind of see what’s here. There’s always something surprising.”

Schneider said she was always the friend and colleague who would put together tours for out-of-town visitors. When she thought about the number of out-of-towners who come to the city for a convention or conference who never get a chance to explore the city because of tight schedules, the lightbulb went off for her.

She said she decided to combine her love for the Elm City with her passion for fitness full time with the new Fitstyle project.

“All of us are thinking about how can we keep moving throughout our day,” she said. ​“And we have so many people coming in for conventions and meetings and different things you just don’t have time. Or you’re coming to a new place and you’re like ​‘When am I going to have time to just see the city and get to know it?’ [The tour] takes an hour of your time and you get a full view of New Haven and I think it’s really great for people who are coming into New Haven but also people who live in the area.”

Thursday’s tour wound down Crown Street, where Schneider pointed out Gateway Community College, then back out onto Chapel Street past shops and their holiday directions, and the Yale art museums. The tour cut between Barnes & Noble and the old home of Thali Too to a pathway that led to Payne Whitney gym and then on to the new residential colleges at Yale.

Schneider said at the conclusion of the tour, which culminated in snacks and beer at The Beer Collective, that the tour through Yale was by design.

“We want to take people into these different pathways that they may not think to go on their own, or they might think, ​‘Is it OK to go there?’” she said. ​“Yale’s campus is here, and there are pathways, and they’re open to people. But so many times a lot of what we think might be closed off to us might be totally accessible. I want that to be part of these walking tours, too, to kind of show you all of the things you have at your fingertips or footsteps.”

People can schedule private and group walking tours through her website. The next public tour is slated for Dec. 16. Dates for 2018 will be announced soon, she said.

“I can’t think of a better thing to spend my time doing,” she said of her business. ​“It’s still helping people redefine what fitness is and it is all about getting away from that perspective of ​‘well it needs to happen in a gym’ [to be fitness].

“It doesn’t,” she said. ​“It can happen anywhere, anytime, anyplace that fits into your schedule. This is a fun unique experience that I think is great for anyone at all fitness levels.”