Consider a walk in \mathbb{Z}^n with the following constraints:
1) At each step you may only step 1 unit in the positive or negative direction of each orthogonal basis vector of \mathbb{Z}^n.
2) You may not visit the same position more than once.
What is the fewest number of steps you must take to get "stuck," or in other words, so that all positions 1 step away have already been visited, leaving you with 0 possible moves which follow the above constraints.
Claim:
The minimum number of steps needed to get stuck in \mathbb{Z}^n is given by
4n - 1
for all n \ge 2\in\mathbb{N}
Proof:
Let x_1, x_2, x_3, \ldots , x_n be the n unit orthogonal basis vectors of \mathbb{Z}^n. Let v_1 = \pm x_a and v_2 = \pm x_b for all a, b such that 1 \le a \ne b \le n.
v_1 can reach v_2 in 2 steps and no fewer. Each step can be seen as adding one of these basis vectors (muliplied by \pm 1) to the "current position." Then if v_1 is the current position, then the first step is to add v_2, putting the current position at v_1 + v_2. The second step is to add -v_1, putting the current position at v_2.
We will start the walk at x_1. Using the method just described, we will move from
x_1 to x_1 + x_2 to x_2 to \ldots to x_n to x_n - x_1 to -x_1 to \ldots to -x_n.
Each one of the vectors we visit and each intermediary step is unique and not equal to the zero vector. There are 2n different positions that we will visit, not including the origin. Then there are 2n - 1 jumps between them, eaching costing 2 steps, putting the total number of steps at 2(2n-1) = 4n-2 steps.
Lastly, we step to the origin, putting the total number of steps at 4n-1. We have already visited all 2n positions reachable from the origin using the minimal number of steps possible, and have no more possible steps to take. Therefore, the minimal number of steps to get stuck in \mathbb{Z}^n is 4n-1.