Buzz
Whether you're exploring a new city or staying close to home, there are times when you simply want to stroll but lack inspiration for a route. Enter Strolly, a free iPhone app designed to solve this problem. Upon opening the app, it generates three nearby walking loops—short, medium, and long—based on your location. You can easily switch between the options and pick the one that suits you best.
The app keeps things simple: no turn-by-turn navigation, and you’re limited to three daily route suggestions. It focuses on incorporating local landmarks and avoids repeating the same paths. All route generation happens locally on your device, ensuring your location data remains private and isn’t shared with external servers.
The app is ad-free, with only a small settings button allowing users to tip the developers if they wish. Future updates may introduce premium features, as mentioned in their announcement post, but for now, it’s a straightforward tool created by a small team (Natalia Panferova and Matthaus Woolard) for a specific purpose.
How Strolly Operates
After opening the app, you’ll be presented with several route options. I tested it in various locations, and it typically offered a 15-minute walk, a 30-minute walk, and an hour-long walk, with some flexibility. If shorter walks are your preference, you can customize the settings to receive a mix of long, medium, and short route suggestions.
You can cycle through the randomly generated walks by flipping the cards in the bottom-left corner. Additionally, you can tap and hold a card to either save a walk for later or discard the current options and generate new ones. The app also lets you mark areas unsuitable for walking, teaching it to avoid such locations in the future. All this data stays on your device and isn’t shared with any servers.
Strolly is intentionally straightforward. Try it out the next time you’re unsure where to walk and need a bit of inspiration.
