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What is the difference between planning, navigating and recording a walk?

Short answer

Planning is asking Walkable for a route before you set off. Navigating is being guided along a route while you walk. Recording is Walkable remembering the path your feet actually took. They are independent — you can record without planning, and the recording is what becomes your walk.

Updated · 3 min read

Planning

Planning happens before you move. You ask for a loop of a certain length, or a way to a destination, and Walkable draws a proposed line on the map. Nothing is recorded yet and nothing is saved — it is a suggestion you can accept or replace.

The Plan a route screen, with Loop and A to B tabs. Two candidate loops are drawn on the map, and the picker offers Loop 1 at 4.93 km, moderate, roughly 59 minutes at an easy pace with 45 m of climb.
The Plan a route screen, with Loop and A to B tabs. Two candidate loops are drawn on the map, and the picker offers Loop 1 at 4.93 km, moderate, roughly 59 minutes at an easy pace with 45 m of climb.

Recording

Recording is independent of both. From the moment you press start, Walkable notes where you go and builds the path of the walk. This is what gets saved to your history, and it is the real walk — the planned route was only ever a suggestion.

This distinction matters when the two differ. If you planned a three-kilometre loop and wandered off for an extra kilometre, your history shows four kilometres, because that is what you walked.

A walk in progress showing 1.28 km against a 5.00 km target, 3 minutes 26 seconds elapsed, a progress bar reading 25% of your loop, the route on the map, and a note kept mid-walk.
A walk in progress showing 1.28 km against a 5.00 km target, 3 minutes 26 seconds elapsed, a progress bar reading 25% of your loop, the route on the map, and a note kept mid-walk.

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