Here in South Florida there’s the Intracoastal Waterway and several tributary rivers. You could flat-water paddle from here to Norfolk Virginia.
While trying to find another thread I ran into this one, which I’d completely forgotten about, and thought I’d update and provide a couple of thank-yous:
Since 2014 I have actually done a number of urban paddles, all of them quite great:
Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, shared with an enormous lake freighter and with my 4-year-old grandson in the bow (thanks, @ZipperJJ!)
Potomac River, DC, forest on the VA side, monuments in DC on a wet and chilly morning in the fall (thanks, @dasmoocher!)
Schuylkill River, Philadelphia, beastly hot upstairs but lovely on the river (thanks, @Stratocaster!)
Milwaukee River, Milwaukee, tons of bridges and cuts right through downtown
Passaic River, Newark, NJ, at a remove from most of the downtown area and completely empty of traffic
Buffalo River, Buffalo, one abandoned factory after another plus a couple refurbished ones
Zumbro River, Rochester MN, short but sweet with geese all over the place
Wolf Lake, Hammond IN, also factories; I remember omnipresent smoke plumes from when I was a kid
Hoping to get another couple in this summer, maybe Pittsburgh (thanks, @Trinopus and @kayaker), Boston, Madison…I don’t know yet what’s feasible and where my travels will take me, but as they say it’s the journey that counts. Thanks to all who made suggestions: maybe someday I’ll get to the South or the West, or back into Canada.
There is a mostly channeled ‘killer creek’ here in Central NY. Onondaga Creek. People paddle down it now and then, yes, right through downtown, to its source south of the city. It looks so nice and peaceful! If I was 40 years younger, I would love to join them - they clean up a lot of it. A lot of garbage, trash, tires, shopping carts in that water.
Damn dude, you did it! Good work!
We live near the Mad River, in Ohio. It’s a beautiful, little river to paddle on.
The Bow River in Calgary is very nice in summer.
Maybe another one in Philly for you to paddle as this was in today’s (online) paper
It’s been a while since I read it, but I believe the book Up the Rouge!: paddling Detroit’s hidden river. by Joel Thurtell mentions having to take a course of antibiotics after the trip.
He also mentions the wonder of being in a hidden wilderness, so close to urban sprawl.
Seattle does have an urban river, the Duwamish. I wouldn’t recommend it though.
On the other hand, We have the Lake Washington Ship Canal and Lake Union, which are great for kayaking.
Also, Elliot Bay in calm weather.
I’ve paddled the Sheboygan River in WI from just below the falls in Kohler (home of all those toilets and sinks) thru a wonderful rural stretch in the middle of Kohler’s world class golf course, then into downtown Sheboygan, with a delightful mix of rural, industrial but not particularly dirty or smelly, to low end urban, into the harbor and into Lake Michigan. Some very nice restaurants are accessible downtown from the river.