Vancouver, revealed on foot
The map starts hidden under fog. Walk the seawall, or the grid behind it, and those streets stay lit for as long as you keep the app.
Water on three sides
Vancouver is hemmed in, and that changes how the map fills. The downtown peninsula has water to the north, west and south, so the fog you clear there has hard edges from the very first walk and the shape becomes recognisable almost immediately. Off the peninsula the city is a strict grid: numbered avenues running east to west, named streets running north to south, and almost no diagonal to confuse anyone.
It is not flat. The land rises steadily from False Creek up to the ridge along 16th Avenue and again toward Queen Elizabeth Park, and the streets climb straight up rather than contouring around. The North Shore mountains sit across the inlet as a permanent reminder that the grid stops at the water.
The seawall, and what to add to it
The seawall is the obvious walk and it earns the reputation. Coal Harbour around Stanley Park to English Bay is roughly ten kilometres of uninterrupted paved path with water on one side the entire way, and it draws a long continuous arc on the map that nothing else in the city can match.
The problem is that an arc is thin. Pair it with the streets behind it. Come off the seawall at English Bay, walk the West End blocks between Denman and Burrard, then cross to Yaletown and back along False Creek. Or do the south side: Granville Island, up into Kitsilano, and fill in the grid between 4th Avenue and Broadway. That turns a line into an area, which is what actually moves a percentage.
Rain is the tradeoff
From October to March it rains, often for days at a time, and the light goes early. It also stays mild, which is the point. Vancouver has no month where walking is impossible, only months where you get wet, so coverage keeps building through the winter while colder cities stop outright. Good boots do more for your city percent here than enthusiasm does.
Summers are dry, bright and long, and the whole city is out walking. If you want the big distances, that is when to take them. Wildfire smoke drifting in during late summer is the one thing that reliably cancels a day, and it is worth checking before committing to a long route.
Practical notes
In the West End and downtown the towers stand dense and close, and positioning is less certain in those blocks than anywhere else in the city. A trail can lean a street over between Robson and Georgia before it settles. Out on the seawall, with open water beside you, it is about as clean as this gets.
Distances are longer than the grid implies. From the waterfront down to 41st Avenue is a serious walk, and the long east to west runs across Commercial Drive, Main and Cambie will use up an afternoon each. If you want a district to actually close on the map, pick something contained like Mount Pleasant and do it in two or three passes rather than trying to cross the city in one.
Questions people actually ask
Does FOG have Vancouver routes built in?
No. No curated routes, no guides, no local partnerships. It is the same world map everywhere, hidden under fog, and only your own walking clears it.
Does it work in the rain with the phone away?
Yes. Background exploring keeps revealing the map with the app closed and the screen off, so the phone can stay in a jacket pocket.
Does running or riding count?
Yes. FOG works for walking, running and riding, anywhere on Earth. Covering the seawall on a bike clears it the same way.
Is any of it uploaded?
No. There is no account, no sign-up, no cloud, no analytics, no ads and no tracking. The map never leaves the phone, and you can export your data.
What is the price?
Free to explore. A single purchase of USD 5.99 unlocks unlimited ranks, every character and history import. No subscription, ever.
Start with a dark map.
FOG is free to explore. No account, no subscription, and your map never leaves your phone.
free to explore · one purchase unlocks everything · never a subscription