Walk Taipei until the fog is gone
Taipei is a walking city that hides most of itself inside lanes. FOG keeps the whole world map dark until you physically go somewhere, and then leaves it lit for good.
The grid, and the maze inside it
Taipei runs on two street systems at once. The arterials are a wide, sane grid: Zhongxiao, Renai, Xinyi and Heping running east to west, Zhongshan, Fuxing and Dunhua running north to south. Inside every one of those superblocks sits a second city of numbered lanes and alleys, and that is where most of Taipei actually lives.
The old west end does not obey any of it. Wanhua around Longshan Temple and Dadaocheng around Dihua Street grew before the grid arrived, so the streets bend, taper and meet at odd angles. The east side, Xinyi and the newer parts of Da'an, is flat and rectangular and quick to cover. Walk both in the same day and the difference shows up on the map immediately.
An afternoon that lights up a lot of map
Start at Longshan Temple. Walk north through the Wanhua backstreets into Ximending and take the pedestrian streets rather than the main road, because the small ones are the ones still under fog. Cross east past Zhongshan Hall, then head north on Yanping or Dihua into Dadaocheng, where the shophouse arcades run for blocks and keep the sun off you.
From the top of Dihua Street you can turn toward the Tamsui riverside and pick up the levee path, which is flat, unbroken and adds distance quickly. Coming back through Zhongshan district gives you a second set of lanes to fill. The loop is two to three hours at a normal pace, and it clears a solid connected block of the west side rather than a thin line across it.
Why the fog is stubborn here
The arterials go fast. One walk down Zhongxiao East Road clears a long clean stripe and feels like progress. Then you look at what is left and realise the stripe is a fence around a hundred lanes you have not touched.
That is the honest shape of Taipei on this map. The main roads are a small fraction of the walkable street length. Filling a district properly means going up a numbered lane and its alleys, coming back out, and starting the next one. City percent creeps and then jumps when a whole block finally closes. Taipei is a city where a single district can absorb weeks of walking, which is either the appeal or the problem depending on your temperament.
Weather, towers and other practical notes
Summer is the limiting factor. From June into September the heat and humidity make long daylight walks unpleasant, and the rain arrives in sheets rather than drizzle. The covered arcades along the older streets help more than an umbrella does. Autumn and the mild, damp winter are the good months, and a typhoon day is simply a day you do not walk.
In Xinyi the towers stand close together and phone positioning gets noisy between them, so a trail can drift a street sideways before it settles again in the open blocks. Elevation is the other thing to plan for. The basin floor is flat, but the edges climb hard, and the Xiangshan steps behind Xinyi will buy you a view and very little new map for the effort.
Questions people actually ask
Does FOG have Taipei routes or guides in it?
No. There are no curated routes, no local partnerships and no built-in guide. The map is the same everywhere on Earth. The only thing that makes your Taipei different from anyone else's is which streets you have physically walked.
Do I have to keep the app open while I walk?
No. Background exploring keeps revealing the map with the app closed and the screen off, so you can put the phone in a pocket and walk.
Can I add walks I did before I installed it?
Yes, with the paid unlock. FOG imports Google Timeline exports and GPX files, so years of old Taipei walking can be brought in at once.
What does it cost?
Free to explore. One single purchase of USD 5.99 unlocks unlimited ranks, every character and history import. There is no subscription, ever.
Does it tell me how much of Taipei I have covered?
Yes. For any city you have walked, the app shows what percentage of it you have lit up. Taipei is also part of the wider collection of 241 countries, 3,390 regions and 7,342 named places, which you can only collect by standing in them.
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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