Classic and hidden walks in various areas of London are set to become more popular and easier to find for locals with the launch of a new app, Go Jauntly. 

A free community-based app, Go Jauntly, is the creation of a group of Londoners who all work together at the tech start-up and design studio, Furthermore. It is designed to help people find local walks created by the people who know them, create their own and share them with friends. As recent headlines have shown, busy lives and desk jobs make it difficult to live healthily and modern life is harming the health of the nation. 

The app uses beautiful imagery and narrative to easily guide people along the route making it much simpler and more accessible than a traditional map. Powered by Transport for London's open data, Londoners will also be also be able to keep a track of London-wide air pollution levels through the app. A recent study by TfL shows that Londoners make 3.6 million daily journeys by car, motorcycle, taxi or public transport that could be walked, at least in part. The Go Jauntly team were motivated by this and all the compounding science and evidence that highlights the health and wellness benefits of walking. 

“We’re hoping that with Go Jauntly we’re creating technology for good that has a positive impact on society from a health, wellness and environmental perspective. We wanted to start something that would get people out of the house and more active. Our team at Go Jauntly are all nature-loving city dwellers who spend too much of our time deskbound and wanted to be a bit more active. We’d been getting frustrated by how hard it is to uncover new places locally to take short and long local walks, find hidden trails in familiar places, and discover the nature on our doorstep and beyond. So we created Go Jauntly.”

— Hana Sutch, Co-Founder

The walks that have been created for the launch of the app include walks in South-East London’s ancient cemeteries with great views to strolls through Richmond park, or even hidden gems a little more centrally in Regents Park. There are over 7,000 minutes of walks in the app with 40 in London and others Suffolk and Kent. These initial walks are in the app to encourage people to go and explore outdoors but also to inspire people to create their own and share them with other Go Jauntly members. 

“Walking is a great way to travel to work, see the city, socialise and keep healthy. This new app, which uses our dynamic open data, will help people find new inspiring walking routes that London has to offer and support our wider goal to provide accurate information directly to customers.”

— Rikesh Shah, Lead Digital Partnerships Manager at Transport for London

Today the public beta V1.0 is launched in the UK's Apple App store following successful testing with a bank of private beta users. The team are now focussed on additional functionality to take the app out of beta.

Dr Miles Richardson from the University of Derby who is leading a research package for the Improving Wellbeing through Urban Nature (IWUN) study which aims to find out more about how Sheffield’s natural environment can improve the health and wellbeing of the city’s residents has been helping to advise and beta test Go Jauntly said:

“I reconnected to nature through taking simple walks and noticing nature. The rhythm of walking helps clear the mind, as does taking a moment to notice nature, there’s always something to see, even in the city. Walking, nature and being connected to it is good for us, from vitality and creativity to happiness”

— Dr Miles Richardson, University of Derby

The next steps are to continue working on additional features, further integration of Transport for London’s (Tfl) open data, building up the community, adding more walks from further afield and organising some real-life local jaunts where everyone is welcome to tag along.

Go Jauntly is now available on the App Store and is currently piloting a public beta.  

If you're interested in finding out more about Go Jauntly, or the health and wellness benefits of walking, you can contact the team here or follow-us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

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