Thoroughly explore the neighborhood: is there an app for that?

November 4, 2018 5:45 AM

I'd like to to exhaustively explore some neighborhoods by walking down every street. I could print out a map and mark my progress by hand, but are there any iOS apps or other tools that could more effectively facilitate this?

My goals are to find new and interesting places as well as search for rental postings that may exist only as physical signs.

There are exercise apps which can show you your route, but it's important to be to be able to gradually combine these as I don't expect to complete the task in a single session.

I don't care about how fast I do the walking, just where I've been. Bonus points for being able to pinpoint when I walked a particular street.

posted by Cogito to Technology (6 answers total)

Try adding "canvassing" as a search term.
posted by glonous keming at 6:24 AM on November 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best answer: There's apps like STRUT and World Uncovered that unlock the map as you walk around. Is that what you're looking for?
posted by humboldt32 at 7:53 AM on November 4, 2018 [8 favorites]

The GAIA gps app might work. I don’t think you can combine routes, but you give every route a color and if you made them all the same color it would look like one big route. When you click on one of the routes it will tell you when you were there.
posted by get off of my cloud at 1:45 PM on November 4, 2018

Not exactly what you asked for but if you want to find new and interesting places while walking around you should use the Nearby feature on Wikipedia. Great fun if you’re in a fairly dense and walkable area.
posted by peacheater at 2:26 PM on November 4, 2018

Sounds like CityStrides.
posted by cichlid ceilidh at 3:01 PM on November 8, 2018

Response by poster: World Uncovered has been working pretty well for me so far.

Thanks for all the responses!
posted by Cogito at 8:05 AM on January 8, 2019