Trailquest: log the miles you really walk and move along a virtual PCT, AT or Camino

Pacing a long walking goal

A trail of two thousand miles is not a task but a habit measured over a year or more, so the pace that matters is weekly, not daily. Pick a weekly distance you already hit on an ordinary week, not on your best one, and hold it for a month before changing anything. A common rule for adding distance is no more than ten percent a week, and a common pattern is three weeks of building followed by one lighter week at roughly two thirds of the load. The light week is not lost progress: feet, knees and motivation all recover in it, and the next block starts from a higher floor.

Days off are part of the plan, not a failure of it. A streak counter is good for noticing a pattern, but a fourteen-day streak followed by a fortnight of nothing moves the marker less than four steady days a week for a year. If you log step counts, keep the conversion honest; a round number that flatters you today makes the milestones meaningless later. And this is walking advice from the trail community, not medical or training advice: if you have a heart, joint or breathing condition, or anything hurts for more than a couple of days, ask a doctor or a physiotherapist before pushing the mileage.

Real miles laid onto a virtual trail

Trailquest lays the distance you really walked around your neighbourhood onto a virtual long trail. The Pacific Crest Trail (about 2,650 miles), the Appalachian Trail (about 2,190), the Continental Divide Trail, the Camino de Santiago, the John Muir Trail, Korea’s Baekdudaegan ridge and a Tokyo-to-Kyoto Tōkaidō are built in, each with named milestones in order. Type in today’s distance and your marker moves along the map; the moment your running total passes a milestone it unlocks, dated.

You type distances in miles or kilometres. Paste the step count from your phone’s health app and it is converted with your steps-per-mile figure, but the app never reads steps or location on its own. A web app cannot reach HealthKit or Google Fit, so there is no “tracking I never asked for”: it only moves as far as you write. You can draw up your own route too. No account, no membership, no ads, and every picture is hand-drawn vector art. No generative AI landscapes anywhere.

Pick a trail in the Routes card. If it is your first, a shorter one like the Camino (about 500 miles) or the John Muir Trail (about 211) feels reachable. After a walk or a run, type the distance and tap “Add to log”. The marker moves on the map and a toast tells you when you pass a milestone. If your phone only gives you a step count, paste it into the step card instead.

When a route is done a “Route complete” card appears and the log stays. Tap another route to keep going, and whenever you come back the old progress is still there. A wrong entry can be tapped in the list and fixed or deleted; progress recalculates on the spot. Add the page to your home screen and it opens like an app.

Route card, log, milestones and stats

• The amber strip at the top: a note that your data stays on this device and that there are no generative AI landscapes.
• The active route card: the route name, a drawn map with ridges and the trail, the progress bar and percentage, walked, total and remaining, and how far the next milestone is.
• Log today’s distance: distance, date, an optional note, the mi / km toggle and the “Add to log” button.
• Paste step count: type the steps and your steps per mile, see the distance, and “Log this distance” adds it.
• The milestone list: from the start to the end in order. Reached ones show a green marker post and the date; the rest show a grey post and “Locked”.
• Routes: presets and your own, each with its own progress. Tap one to make it active; the route you left keeps its progress. “Create a route” takes a name, a total distance and optional milestones.
• Log and stats: the entries on this route (tap to edit or delete), total distance across all routes, active days, current streak and longest streak.
• Backup: Export JSON, Import JSON, and Delete all data.

Where your log stays

Routes, entries, milestones and settings stay on this device; there is no account, no sync, no leaderboard and no membership, and the app never reads steps or location on its own. Each route keeps its own log, so switching between a finished route and one in progress deletes nothing. Before a new phone or a reinstall, export JSON from the Backup card and “Import JSON” brings every route, entry and milestone back; “Delete all data” wipes it if you want a clean start.