San Diego, canyon by canyon
The map starts hidden. In San Diego it comes back as a set of bright islands, because that is honestly how the city is put together.
A city cut up by canyons
San Diego looks flat on a map and it is not. Finger canyons run through the middle of it and they decide everything. Two neighbourhoods can sit four hundred metres apart across a canyon and be two kilometres apart on foot. Balboa Park is itself a canyon system with roads bridged across it, which is why the Cabrillo Bridge exists at all.
Then add the freeways. The 5 along the bay, the 163 through the park, the 8 across the top of Mission Valley. Between the canyons and the interchanges, the city breaks into pieces that do not connect the way the street map promises they will. Planning a walk here means checking whether the line you drew has a bridge on it.
The walkable islands
The pieces themselves are excellent walking. Little Italy and the Embarcadero. Downtown, the Gaslamp and East Village. Golden Hill and South Park on their bluff. Hillcrest and North Park strung along University Avenue. Ocean Beach and the cliffs at Sunset Cliffs Boulevard. Barrio Logan under the bridge.
Best of all is the boardwalk, which runs roughly five kilometres from South Mission Beach up through Mission Beach to the north end of Pacific Beach with no cars on it whatsoever. Mission Bay adds miles of path on the inland side. La Jolla and Coronado are their own compact worlds. Between all of these is a great deal of ground that nobody walks and probably never will.
An afternoon from Little Italy to North Park
Start in Little Italy, go down India Street and out onto the Embarcadero. Follow the water south past the Star of India and the convention centre, cut back up through the Gaslamp and East Village, climb into Golden Hill, then cross into Balboa Park over the Cabrillo Bridge. Walk El Prado end to end, leave by the north side into Hillcrest, and head east along University Avenue into North Park. Around twelve kilometres, two of the city's best bridges, and four neighbourhoods that most residents drive between without thinking about it.
Honest about the percentage
Here is the part worth saying plainly. The city limits cover about 840 square kilometres, most of it low density and built around cars, and city percent in San Diego will crawl no matter how much you walk. What actually appears on the map is a constellation: the uptown neighbourhoods, the beach strand, downtown and the bay, with dark canyon, freeway and cul-de-sac suburb in between. That is not a failure of effort. It is an accurate portrait of the city.
The compensation is the climate. San Diego has no walking season because every month is one. Late spring mornings come with the marine layer sitting grey over the coast until noon, which is the best long-walk weather of the year. Inland runs hot in August, the coast rarely does, and rain is close to a rumour for eight months at a stretch. If you want a place where you can walk every single day, this is one of the few.
Questions people actually ask
Why does my San Diego percentage barely move?
The city limits are very large and mostly low density. City percent is honest arithmetic over the whole municipality, so a full day of walking uptown moves it very little.
Does it work on the Mission Beach boardwalk with the phone away?
Yes. Background exploring keeps revealing streets with the app closed and the screen off, so you can walk or run the boardwalk without touching it.
Does FOG work for cycling the bay path?
It works for walking, running and riding, anywhere on Earth. Same map, same rules.
What does the unlock cost?
Free to explore. One purchase of USD 5.99 unlocks unlimited ranks, every character and history import. No subscription.
Is my location data uploaded?
No. No account, no sign-up, no cloud, no analytics, no ads, no tracking. The map never leaves the phone, and you can export your own data.
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