It was a lovely spring afternoon. I decided to go for a stroll, only my “stroll” ended up lasting over an hour. I like to explore on foot because you notice things you’ll never see from a car, or even a bike (because you’re
always worrying about cars). Plus, the exercise of course.

Anyway, I was curious what distance I covered once I got home. I knew there had to be a mashup ^[1] out there for this sort of thing, so I started googling and, sure enough, it didn’t take long to find just the tool.

Gmaps Pedometer ^[2] is a Google Maps application (not really a mashup since the programmer is only enhancing it) with a nice interactive interface.

You start by narrowing the location using the same methods you’re already used to (an address is easiest). Zoom and pan are always available. To begin marking your route, press the “Start recording” button and double click each point along the way (a nice side effect of this is as you trace your route, the map is always centered at your last point). After each point is recorded (which you can undo) the total distance is updated. There are options for english and metric units. You can also enable mile markers and there’s even a calorie counter. Another nice feature is elevation so you can see along the route which hills you climbed and descended. For posterity, you can save, print and even export the route as GPX ^[3].

Total Distance: 3.5 miles
Change in Elevation: 140 feet
Elapsed Time: 80 minutes
Calories Burned: 400

It’s a nice tool for bikers and joggers as well.