app for tracking/planning a walking project

May 19, 2020 11:13 AM

I'm thinking of embarking on a "walk all the streets in my local area" project. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to track where I've been?

The simplest thing to do would be just to mark up a paper map but I'm hoping a more high-tech solution. I already use an app (map-my-run) to record each walk but I would ideally like something that not only traces out my current walk but also shows where I have already been so that I can stay on streets that I have yet to cover. Or, maybe even better, something that highlights where I have not been so that I can "unhighlight" these streets as I move (I'm just brainstorming as I write).

Another feature that might be nice would be a planning feature that gets to a new area each day while minimizing the time spent on roads already covered - not just for the current day but longer term. I plan to do these walks starting from my home for the most part so some duplication will be unavoidable but I would rather not do more than necessary.

I can think of quite a few bells and whistles that would be nice but I'm interested in knowing if anything exists already for this purpose and hearing about first hand experiences.

Thanks!

posted by metadave to Health & Fitness (11 answers total)

The simplest thing to do would be just to mark up a paper map

I made my living in IT, and that's what I'd use. Paper and coloured highlighters are really really hard to beat for this kind of high-reliability, low-intrusivity, low-stakes, one-off kind of use case.
posted by flabdablet at 12:11 PM on May 19, 2020

I've seen a few questions on here along these lines, including one in the past month. IIRC, there's not a perfectly comprehensive answer, but I'll be following along anyhow.

In the meanwhile, here's this question from a couple years ago.
posted by tapir-whorf at 12:14 PM on May 19, 2020

It’s actually quite satisfying to look at a paper map, marked up with various pens. A friend in San Francisco kept a map of the city in her purse, marked with all the streets she had walked. It was very cool- and she would always add some time if going to a new place to walk the area.
posted by rockindata at 12:39 PM on May 19, 2020

The app/website MapMyTracks would be my suggestion. You can create routes, track your routes, etc. There's a bit of a learning curve, but the mapping function is quite good!
posted by guzzalina at 12:47 PM on May 19, 2020

Strava has a "heatmap" function - showing where you have already recorded activities such as walks.
posted by hepta at 2:22 PM on May 19, 2020

I use Topo Maps + (free version, iOS only) to record my hikes and it would work well for this. You can see previous tracks on the map and each track records how far you walked and how long it took. I’ve exported tracks and waypoints, although I don’t do much of that so I’m not sure how robust it is, if you wanted to get fancy with your data. You can preplan a route, although I haven’t done it and it’s not automated.
posted by momus_window at 3:20 PM on May 19, 2020

Look at Google maps Timeline feature. It keeps the history of where youve been. But not so much the planning for future walks.
posted by CathyG at 8:41 PM on May 19, 2020

Wandrer is a Strava plugin that does exactly this. I don't know whether it's changed at all with yesterday's Strava changes, but here's a tweet with a picture.

Sorry I've not used it, so can't report: I'm confined to indoors right now.
posted by ambrosen at 11:55 PM on May 19, 2020

This doesn't hit all your needs, but check out Fog of World.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 8:57 AM on May 20, 2020

We have been using the Gaia GPS app to track our quarantine walk all the streets walks. We record a track for each walk and it displays them on the main map. It doesn’t have any of the bells and whistles you mentioned as far as I know.

We are using an older version from before they moved to a subscription model but it sounds like the free version may be sufficient for your needs.
posted by unus sum at 12:12 AM on May 21, 2020

Thank you for all the responses. Many of them look promising. I'm planning on doing a sampling of these and then going with the one I like best. If I actually get this done, I'll post either a write up or a link to a write up here.
posted by metadave at 10:52 AM on May 25, 2020