Houston is a big map and you clear it slowly
FOG hides the entire world under fog and reveals only the streets you physically walk. Houston is one of the harder cities to make a dent in, and that is worth knowing before you start.
What you are actually up against
Houston sprawls. The city limits alone cover an enormous area, the region has no zoning in the usual sense, and the street network was built around freeways: the 610 Loop, Beltway 8, I-45, I-10, US 59. Between them sit long arterial roads with wide setbacks, drainage ditches instead of kerbs in older areas, and stretches where the sidewalk simply stops.
None of that makes walking impossible. It makes it selective. There are genuinely good walking districts, and then there is a lot of territory where being on foot is unpleasant enough that you will not do it twice. The map reflects this honestly. Your cleared area in Houston will look like a handful of bright islands with grey between them, and that is the accurate picture of how the city works.
The terrain is at least easy. Houston is flat, close to sea level, and cut through by slow bayous rather than hills. Nothing about the ground will tire you out. The heat will.
The districts that actually reward walking
Downtown has a compact, regular grid of short blocks, so it fills in fast. Midtown just south of it is the same grid continued, with a walkable stretch along Main Street. Montrose is the best neighbourhood in the city for aimless walking: leafy, gridded, mixed in scale, with Westheimer Road running through it. The Museum District and Hermann Park give you connected green space and real pedestrian paths, and the Rice University loop is a continuous circuit that clears cleanly.
The Heights, north-west of downtown, has a proper old street grid, bungalows, big trees, and the Heights Hike and Bike Trail running through it. EaDo and the East End are gridded and flat. Chinatown out on Bellaire Boulevard, by contrast, is a strip-mall landscape where you will spend more time crossing parking lots than covering streets.
A route that gets you a lot of cleared ground
Start at Sam Houston Park on the west edge of downtown and take the Buffalo Bayou Park path west along the water. It is continuous, shaded in places, and runs several miles past Eleanor Tinsley Park toward Shepherd Drive. Come off the trail into Montrose, work a loop through the residential streets south of Westheimer, then cut east through the Museum District and Hermann Park before heading back up Main Street through Midtown into downtown.
That is a long afternoon, mostly flat, and it links four of the best walkable pockets in the city into one connected shape on the map instead of separate blobs.
Heat, sidewalks and other honest notes
The season is short. Houston summer runs roughly May through September and it is hot and humid in a way that shortens walks badly. Afternoon thunderstorms are routine. The good walking months are November through March, when it is mild and often pleasant. Plan the ambitious routes for then.
Sidewalk quality varies wildly. Older inner-loop neighbourhoods have sidewalks in mixed repair. Newer suburban areas often have none at all along the arterials. Check before committing to a long straight line on an unfamiliar road.
Downtown tunnels. There is an extensive underground pedestrian tunnel system connecting downtown buildings. It is air-conditioned and useful, but it is underground, so it will not clear the street above it.
FOG keeps recording with the app closed and the screen off. No account, no cloud, no ads, no tracking, and the map never leaves the phone.
Questions people actually ask
Is Houston realistic to fill in?
Not the whole city, no. It is too large and too much of it is hostile to pedestrians. Filling in your own neighbourhood, downtown and the inner-loop districts is very realistic.
Do bike rides count?
Yes. FOG works for walking, running and riding, which makes the bayou trails a fast way to clear long corridors.
Can I import my old Google Timeline history?
Yes, with the paid unlock. Timeline exports and GPX files both import.
What does it cost?
Free to explore. One purchase of USD 5.99 unlocks unlimited ranks, every character, and history import. There is no subscription.
Does it show my percentage of the city?
Yes. For any city you have walked, FOG shows what percentage of it you have lit up. In Houston that number moves slowly, which is the point.
Start with a dark map.
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