There's something magical about a good walk. Whether you're exploring new city streets on a trip, hitting a familiar local trail, or simply trying to get your daily steps in, the right tool can turn a simple stroll into a memorable adventure. But with countless options out there, finding the perfect app for mapping walks can feel like a journey in itself. It's a crowded space where every app seems to promise the world, but they all serve very different purposes.

Some are built for hardcore athletes chasing personal bests, while others are designed for backcountry hikers who need detailed offline topographic maps. A few are social platforms for sharing your routes with a community, and a select group focuses on quietly and privately journaling your life's path without broadcasting your location to the world. It’s easy to get stuck here, downloading three or four apps before landing on one that actually fits your needs.

This guide is here to cut through that noise. We're going to dive into 12 of the best apps available, breaking down what they do best, who they're for, and any potential drawbacks you should know about. Think of this as a practical, straightforward comparison to help you find the app that matches your walking style. We'll look at everything from social fitness giants like Strava to powerful navigation tools like Gaia GPS and privacy-first journaling apps like Dawarich.

Each review will include key feature summaries, pros and cons, pricing notes, and clear screenshots so you know what you're getting into. My goal is to give you all the information you need to make a confident choice, so you can spend less time searching in the app store and more time enjoying your walk. Let's get started.

Ever wonder where all that location data your phone collects actually goes? A location history visualizer takes that raw, boring stream of GPS coordinates and turns it into a vivid, interactive story of your life's travels.

Instead of a spreadsheet of numbers, you get a personal map showing every path you’ve taken and every place you’ve spent your time. I've found it's a fascinating way to truly see your journeys, from the daily grind to that unforgettable road trip.

Google Timeline has been tracking your location history for years, quietly collecting data about everywhere you've been. But what happens when you export that data? You get one or multiple JSON files that... well, most people have no idea what to do with them.

That's why we built the Google Timeline Visualizer — a free, privacy-first tool that turns those cryptic JSON files into an interactive map you can actually explore.

When we think about memories, we usually imagine photos, videos, or maybe a diary. But what about the places we’ve been, the streets we’ve walked, the roads we’ve taken? That part of the story often gets lost. Dawarich helps turn your everyday routes and special trips into your own map of memories.

Hi and welcome to the November 2024 monthly update of Dawarich!

November was a good month for Dawarich. I've added a lot of new features and fixed a some bugs, and, among other things, I've added a new Patreon tier. It's called "Hosted Dawarich" and basically offers my service of hosting and updating Dawarich for you. Take a look at the Patreon page for more details and feel free to ask me any questions.

Let's dive into the details!

Hi and welcome to the October 2024 monthly update of Dawarich!

News​

The biggest news of October for me is that I'm looking for a job! If you have a position for a Ruby on Rails developer with 10+ years of experience in Germany, drop me a line on LinkedIn or email me.

As for Dawarich, there is a pretty big list of changes and improvements in this release. Let's dive into them!

What's going on?​

As you probably already know, Google discontinuing the web version of its Location History / Timeline service by December 1st, 2024. Here are some dry facts:

• Starting December 1st, 2024, the web version of Timeline will no longer be working
• Timeline data will now be stored on the user's device instead
• Users’ last 90 days of location data will be transferred to the first device they sign in with after December 1, but any data older than this will be deleted unless saved
• Users can manually backup Timeline data to Google’s servers for device restoration, but it will not be the default

The transition offered by Google is far from perfect: some users already have reported they have lost years and years of their location history data.

The least you can do is to export your data from Google. You can do it either using Google's Takeout feature or by navigating to Timeline -> Backup in your Google Maps application. Either way, in the end, you will receive an archive with your location history, hopefully, for the whole time you have been tracking it.

Hi and welcome to the September 2024 monthly update of Dawarich!

This is the first monthly update of the project. It will be published in the end(-ish) of each month and will contain the most interesting news and updates of the project.

News​

Believe it or not, in the beginning of the month, there was less than 900 stars on the GitHub repository. But now, there are almost 2000 stars! The post on the 0.12.0 release on Reddit was very popular and it helped to attract more attention to the project. Shortly after that post, someone posted a link to Dawarich repo on HackerNews and lots of people visited the project page from there. The project is growing and it's very exciting!

Okay, this is the very first blog post on Dawarich blog. If you want to add a tutorial or some docs, feel free to open a pull request to https://github.com/dawarich-app/site. Cheers! 🎉