Station Walks: Trails & GPX

Seven more languages, whole regions kept offline, and "take me back to the start" now answers to Siri.

A free afternoon and no plan. Open the app, say where you're setting off from, and leave with a loop that starts where you actually are, including at a metro exit.

That's the only opening question: "Where are you starting from?" No map to decipher, no account to create.

HOW IT WORKS

1. You answer: my location, a station or a stop, an address, or a point on the map.
2. You say how long you have.
3. Three loops come back, described by their character: the greenest, the flattest, the shortest. A map along the bottom of the screen draws each one in turn.
4. None of them appeal? "Another one" reshuffles as often as you like.
5. You set off. The track follows you in your pocket, screen off.

LEAVING THE CAR BEHIND

This is the whole point of the app. Everyone else gives you driving directions to a trailhead car park. Here the loop begins at the railway station, the tram, the metro or the bus stop. And "take me back to the station" returns you there from anywhere on the route.

Trains, trams and metros come first: they run on Sundays. A bus is only offered when there's nothing else, and it's flagged as such. Out in the country the search widens by itself, out to twenty kilometres, rather than telling you there's nothing here.

ALREADY WALKING?

Already know the path? "Record my walk" keeps the track and hands it back as a GPX file. No pace, no timer: the date, the distance, the time you were out, the profile, and the file.

WHAT'S DIFFERENT

• No single difficulty rating. "Easy" means nothing when you're pushing a pushchair. Distance, ascent and estimated time are each given separately, for what they are. • A last-confirmed date on every route, so you know how old the information is. • Path blocked? One tap: "this path is private". It stops being offered immediately, until it can be checked.

YOUR WALKS STAY ON YOUR PHONE

That sentence is literally true. Your recorded tracks don't leave the device: they go to no server, and the GPX export goes wherever you decide.

Rating a route sends no track at all: the date, your rating, your tags. A few hundred bytes.

You can dictate a note along the way. The audio never leaves the device, transcription happens on it, and you read the text back before it goes anywhere.

No account, no email address, no password. No advertising trackers.

OFFLINE

A saved walk brings its map with it: the corridor around the track is downloaded, and the app tells you before you leave whether it's ready. On the path, your position and heading show with no signal, and the app tells you if you stray from the route.

WHAT STATION WALKS DOESN'T DO

• It isn't a fitness tracker. No pace, no timer, no statistics. You're walking, not performing. • No voice navigation. The map shows where you are; it doesn't talk to you. • No feed, no profiles, no followers, no photos. It isn't a social network. • You'll never read anyone else's written comments, only the facts extracted from them: "muddy, reported 14 March". That's permanent. • No live public transport timetables: the app gets you to the stop, your transit app does the rest.

FREE, AND STAYING THAT WAY

Finding a loop, saving it, keeping it offline, recording your walks, importing and exporting GPX, rating and reporting: free, with no limit.

One banner shows another independent app, on the home screen only. Never on a map, never during a walk. No tracking, no IDFA, no tracking prompt.

PAID, IF YOU WANT IT

• Ad free, for life: a single payment, and the banner goes. • Easy Walks Plus, weekly or yearly: offline areas, to keep a whole region before you go somewhere with no signal, and the assistant.

Prices are shown in the app before anything is bought. The subscription renews automatically until cancelled and can be cancelled at any time in your App Store account settings.

Privacy: https://stationwalks.com/privacy.html Terms of use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Mapping © OpenStreetMap contributors.