A virtual walking challenge to a real place, one day at a time

How a journey works

Search for a start and a destination, or use your current location as the start. Stepr plots the route along walkable streets where it can, along roads where it cannot, and in a straight line across water, so a journey can go almost anywhere.

Progress is your steps since the journey began multiplied by a standard stride of 0.762 metres, which makes a mile about 2,112 steps. Stops sit roughly every 40 miles along the route, plus the destination, and each one shows its name and a short fact from Wikipedia when you reach it. Open the app and the walker sets off from yesterday's point to today's on a 3D map with terrain.

Hearts, food, water and supply drops

The walker has three hearts. A finished day under 2,000 steps costs a heart, unless a supply drop is used for you automatically. A day of 6,000 steps or more heals one. Lose all three and the walker falls: you can revive with a supply drop, start over from mile zero on the same road, or pick a new destination.

Along the road there are food and water caches every 2,000 steps' worth of distance. The hunger and thirst bars run down through the day and refill as you pass caches, which is a gentle reason to get the first walk in early. You start with two supply drops; more are $2.99 for three, and during launch you can restock for free when you run out. The journey itself is free.

How far you will get

At 2,112 steps a mile, the arithmetic is simple and a little humbling. Pick a destination that suits your usual day rather than your best one.

• 5,000 steps a day: about 2.4 miles a day, or 17 miles a week.
• 10,000 steps a day: about 4.7 miles a day, or 33 miles a week.
• A town 20 miles away: about 42,000 steps, roughly a week at 6,000 a day.
• 100 miles: about 211,000 steps, three weeks at 10,000 a day.
• Across the United States by road: well over five million steps, more than a year and a half at 10,000 a day.

Ideas for a first journey

The best destinations mean something. Walk to the city where a friend or your family lives, to the place you grew up, or to the next town over to see what it takes. For a longer project, pick the start and end of a famous route such as a pilgrimage or a coastline; Stepr follows streets between the two points, so it is close to the real route but not the footpath itself.

Themed routes to fictional places are popular, and a journey needs a real destination, so choose a real walk of a similar length instead and give it your own name.

Journeys and leagues together

A journey is personal: one walker, one destination, your own pace. A league is the competition with friends, where the daily goal rises and the last one walking wins. The same steps count towards both, so a walk that keeps you in your league also moves your walker down the road.

Friends can each start a journey to the same place and compare how far they have got, but the journey itself has no elimination and no standings. For that, start a league.

What Stepr stores

Stepr stores the start and destination you chose and the route between them. Choosing to use your location reads your position once, on the phone, to set the start; it is not tracked afterwards. Only the route points are sent to the open routing, place-name and Wikipedia services that draw the route and name the stops.

Questions people ask

Keep reading

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• Step challenge tips: how to hit the goal every day
• The best step challenge apps, sorted by what you actually want
• All guides