Walking Edinburgh with FOG
A volcanic ridge with a medieval town down its spine, and a Georgian grid laid out below it. The two halves fill in nothing alike.
Two street plans, one map
Edinburgh sits on a crag and tail left by a volcano and a glacier. The Old Town runs down the tail, the Royal Mile from the Castle at the top to Holyrood at the bottom, with closes and wynds dropping off both sides in steep narrow slots. Many are dead ends and many are stairs. Below to the north, across the valley where the gardens and the railway sit, the New Town is a Georgian grid: Princes Street, George Street, Queen Street, a square at each end, all straight and regular.
So your fog map here has two textures. One half is clean rectangles. The other is a frayed comb of tiny stubs.
The Water of Leith
Start in Stockbridge and take the Water of Leith walkway upstream to Dean Village, a pocket of old millhouses under the Dean Bridge, then carry on toward the West End. Climb to Lothian Road, cut through Princes Street Gardens under the castle rock, and finish by walking the Royal Mile down to Holyrood. Around seven kilometres with real climbing in the middle of it.
The other direction deserves its own day. Follow the walkway downstream instead, all the way to Leith and the Shore, then out along the water. Flat, continuous, and it draws a long line north across the map.
Hills you will notice
Arthur's Seat is 251 metres and rises straight out of Holyrood Park at the end of a city street. Calton Hill is a short sharp climb for the best view of both towns at once. Salisbury Crags run along the side of the park on a properly exposed path. None of it is mountaineering, but a route that looks flat on paper is often three climbs and three descents, and legs go before the distance does.
Then there is the wind off the Forth, rain that arrives sideways more often than down, and winter afternoons that are dark by four.
Why the Old Town never finishes
The closes are the reason. Advocate's Close, Fleshmarket Close, Lady Stair's Close and dozens more, each one a separate short passage that only counts once you have physically been down it. Most end in a courtyard or a flight of steps, so you walk in and walk back out. It is slow work, and it is the most satisfying part of filling in this city, because nobody covers those by accident.
The New Town behaves itself. Walk the long streets, then the mews lanes behind them, and whole blocks go clear at once. Two very different jobs in a city you can cross in forty minutes.
What FOG is doing
Everything starts hidden under fog and only the streets you physically walk are revealed, permanently. Walking, running and riding all count, and background exploring keeps recording with the app closed and the screen off, which is handy when it is raining hard enough that the phone stays in a pocket.
No account, no sign-up, no cloud, no analytics, no ads, no tracking. The map stays on your phone and you can export your data. Free to explore, with a single USD 5.99 purchase for unlimited ranks, every character and history import from Google Timeline exports or GPX files. No subscription.
Questions people actually ask
Do the Old Town closes really need walking individually?
Yes. Only ground you have physically covered is revealed, so each close counts only once you have walked into it. That is what makes an Edinburgh map look different from anyone else's.
Does climbing Arthur's Seat count?
Anywhere you walk on Earth is revealed, hills included. Open hillside covers area rather than streets, so it fills the map in a different shape from a run of terraces.
What does the unlock cost?
USD 5.99, one time. It unlocks unlimited ranks, every character and history import. There is no subscription.
Where does my data live?
On the phone only. No account, no cloud, no analytics, no ads and no tracking, and you can export it yourself.
Start with a dark map.
FOG is free to explore. No account, no subscription, and your map never leaves your phone.
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