When you talk about walking, I guess you don't actually talk about "walk", but running (not sprinting).

For now I own a horse, that I only use when traveling, but more for roleplaying purposes. For what I read here, it seems that I will end up with the horse dead, but it seems I've been lucky, as it has survived many dragon flames, bandits and other stuff (low level, anyway, as I'm at 12).

The way of playing I chose (at least for this first char) is to always walk, and I mean actually WALK, unless I'm on a difficult fight or some specific situation when running makes sense. It's what I would do in real life, so playing on first person and be able to move at normal speed, while looking around, picking herbs and looking at landscapes feels better for me than runing like in a Quake game. Actually, I started the game without a horse and had to walk to my first city (Riverwood) and then to Whiterun. It was slow, but fun.

I later acquired the horse, and with it I use the run mode (not sprint) when I'm going to one place to another. What I mean is that I enjoy to be able to move fast on a horse, because it makes sense (as I'm sit there), but I don't enjoy runing with my feet here and there.

Anyway I'm thinking on forgetting about the horse eventually, because I have the same issue that some people reported here: not being able to pick herbs, dismount everytime something aggresive is around, etc...

Because:
You can't harvest ingredients while on a horse
You cannot fight and the roads are ridiculously crowded with beasts
Horses think they can take anything in combat
Horses die from a small little stumble
Horses chase fleeing combatants leaving you high and dry
You can't talk to anyone while mounted
Horses have lower stamina and cannot sprint very long
Compared to a player with higher stamina who can sprint a long ways, horses are actually slower over the long run of a journey
Forced third person reduces immersion a little
Stolen ones auto pilot home? Come on... do that after an hour or so. No horse is going to auto pilot immediately.

I love Bethesda to death but did the horse programmer die after putting 2 hours programming into it? They would have been better off copy/pasting the Oblivion source code.
I mean why not some basic commands if you activate it, like:
access saddle bags
Ride
commands: stay here, go home, go to nearest stable, eat this wheat (for stamina boost) or be able to cast fortify stamina spells on it or something.
Then a simple map marker as to where it is, and why does it fast travel with you? You should mount it and then it fast travels with you.

horse's arent a waste of money. as soon as i started my second playthrough i saved up for a horse, on my first playthrough a horse got me 1 handed to 100, 2 handed to 100 archeryt 2 100 and destruction to 100, best thing to train offensive skills on (assumiing you have it on master difficulty so you dont kill the horse)

I can't stand riding horses, I blame it on forcing me into 3rd person. Horses don't handle the same in 3rd as they did in 1st, so it's in my best interest to walk. Besides, if I get attacked while on horseback I have to deal with hopping off of it to kill my enemy since there's no mounted combat so it's easier to walk and be ready for a fight. There's too many mountains for horses anyway.

Another thing, I am annoyed the horse doesn't follow me around when I walk, even if they do it from a distance, reasonable. Stolen horses walk toward their owner, but my own horse doesn't give a damn about me.

I just walk, there is something much nicier about it. You miss stuff when you ride.

Also horses are expensive and always die

Horses are like super warhorses of death, bethesda, why? Would a horse charge a dragon?

I can save the gold and afk macro a mudcrap. lol.

/edit
mudcraB

The Horse Animation's need a lot of work, I prefer to walk or take the guy with his
horse and cart If i can't fast travel to the place. The horses in Assassins Creed:
Brotherhood worked way better than the ones in skyrim.

My first char, whom I quit after five hours, bought a horse so I could see if it was any better than in an Oblivion.

It wasn't.

My current character (basically the same build, but playing with a slower leveling mod) walks everywhere. And by walk I mean hardly ever runs.

I bought a horse on my first character but it didn't take long to regret it and eventually stopped using it altogether anyway. First thing I hated was that I couldn't find the damn thing sometimes. Other times riding it I would lose my companion badly. Sometimes Lydia would be nowhere to be found until I entered another load screen. In short, yes I walk everywhere.

The biggest problem is the lack of Horse stamina and the lack of mounted combat.
It makes horses more of a liability than the advantage they should be.

You have to dismount to fight, and you can't even outrun wolves.

Hope it'll be easier for people to mod in mounted combat this time. (first person would be good too)

me.

I had two horses. Both were killed. The fact that when you are riding, and encounter an enemy, they attack the horse while you are dismounting, and pulling your blade out . . . I gave up on horses. Pointless.

I ride from town to town, dump it at the stables and leave it there until I need to do another straight journey to somewhere specific.

That's all they are for really, I don't fast travel, so it's either horses or carriages when rapid transport is required.

Carriages seem cheap, but eventually the horse's initial cost will save you money.
The other advantage over the carriages is you may see something you really really want to investigate en route... so you can get off your horse and check it out.
Bearing in mind that you are taking a calculated risk.

I never ride when with a companion either, that's just asking for fustration (not to mention a little unfair "Hey Lydia! Try to keep up!").

While mounted combat is a big feature to ask for... I really wish you could at least talk to NPCs while mounted.

But yeah... Horses are only good for when you intend to go straight to a destination without stopping, but are open to investigating something that catches your eye (which is what carriages eliminate).

I used to walk everywhere until got like %75 through the DB quest line.

Me, although I do occaissionally FT or Cart places.

I couldn't take when my horse got hurt in Oblivion. As cool as riding a horse was, it was annoying jumping off every five mins to fight pesky animals that were attracted to its delicious smell. So I decided not to bother this time. I found it too emotionally traumatic.

had like my 5th horse now, i love them, they climb mountains better than jeeps, also can fast travel while im over encumbered, i used them as much as i can and i play in 3rd person.

RDR sort of outlined the terribleness of Bethesda mounts for me. After playing that, no way I can tolerate this moron horses and their death wishes.

I assume if you are riding a horse, you can't have your companion with you, either on their own horse, or sharing yours?

If not, I don't think I'll bother with horses. They seem like too much hassle, having to dismount every time to fight/pick ingredients. Much prefer a companion.

My horse fought a dragon early on and bit the dust.

Others I've ridden off small cliffs and they die like crazy.

I got a life-time ban at the stables.

I enjoy long strolls on the beach

I walk most places

Walking or better running is way more epic than riding any horse ... right?

Depends on the character. Only one that had a horse was my monk, my shaman and thief had to walk.