Krakow, one street at a time
FOG covers the entire world map. The only way to remove it is to physically walk. In Krakow that means the Planty ring, the lanes off the Rynek, Kazimierz, and whatever you can talk yourself into across the river.
What walking Krakow is actually like
Krakow is flat, and the flatness is the point. Apart from Wawel hill and the artificial mounds out west, you can cross the whole historic city without a real climb. The Old Town is a rounded oval about a kilometre across, wrapped in the Planty, a thin park that follows the line of the demolished medieval walls. Inside that oval the streets are a mostly regular medieval grid pinned to Rynek Glowny, the enormous main square, with the Cloth Hall sitting in the middle of it like a building dropped into a car park.
Outside the Planty it changes character fast. Kazimierz to the south is tighter, lower and more tangled, with Plac Nowy at its centre and long straight streets like Jozefa and Meiselsa running through it. South again across the Vistula is Podgorze, quieter, with a hill of its own. Go far enough east and you hit Nowa Huta, a planned steel town from the 1950s built on radial avenues fanning out of Plac Centralny. That is a completely different city grafted onto the same map.
An afternoon that clears real ground
The obvious first walk is the Planty loop. It runs roughly four kilometres all the way around the Old Town, it is continuous, and it is almost impossible to get lost on. Do it once and you have drawn a clean closed ring on your map with a dark hole in the middle, which is annoying enough that you will go and fill the middle in.
For the middle, walk the spokes. Florianska from the Barbican down to the Rynek, then Grodzka south to Wawel. Then pick off Kanonicza, Bracka, Sw. Jana and the small lanes on the east side. From Wawel drop to the river, follow the embankment to the Bernatka footbridge, cross into Podgorze, and come back through Kazimierz via Plac Nowy. That is a comfortable afternoon and it accounts for most of what people mean when they say Krakow.
Why the fog behaves the way it does here
Krakow is one of the good ones for this. The historic core is small and dense, so early walks pay out fast. Two or three days of ordinary wandering and the whole area inside the Planty is lit, which looks genuinely satisfying: a solid bright patch with a ring around it.
Then it slows down, hard. Beyond Kazimierz the blocks get bigger, the streets get longer, and the interesting parts get further apart. Nowa Huta is around ten kilometres from the Rynek and has avenues you can see down for half a kilometre at a stretch. Filling that in is a deliberate project, not something that happens by accident on the way to dinner. The city percent figure in FOG makes this obvious, because it counts the whole administrative city, not the tourist oval.
Honest practical notes
Winter is the constraint. Krakow sits in a valley and traps its own air, so December through February can be cold, grey and smoggy, and the cobbles get slick. February and early March are frequently miserable for long walks. May, June and September are the good months.
The Old Town streets are narrow but the buildings are only four or five storeys, so GPS behaves. You will not get the wandering track you get in a high-rise city. Cobbles are the real hazard, not accuracy.
FOG keeps revealing with the app closed and the screen off, so you can put the phone away and just walk. There is no account, no sign-up and no cloud. The map stays on the phone.
What the app does
The world map starts entirely hidden. Every street you physically walk is revealed permanently. It works the same in Krakow as anywhere else on Earth, for walking, running or riding.
Free to explore. One purchase of USD 5.99 unlocks unlimited ranks, every character and history import. There is no subscription. Ranks climb with the area you have covered, from Wanderer through Scout, Pathfinder, Explorer and Voyager. There is also a collection of 241 countries, 3,390 regions and 7,342 named places, and the only way to add one is to physically stand in it.
If you already have years of Google Timeline data or GPX files, history import is part of the paid unlock, so your old Krakow trips can go straight onto the map.
Questions people actually ask
How long does it take to clear Krakow's Old Town?
The area inside the Planty is about a kilometre across, so a couple of unhurried days of walking will light most of it. The rest of the city, especially Nowa Huta, takes far longer.
Does FOG have Krakow routes or guides built in?
No. FOG is only a map that hides everything until you walk it. There are no curated routes, no guides and nothing city-specific. The map is the same everywhere, only the streets differ.
Can I add walks I did in Krakow years ago?
Yes, if you have the data. History import handles Google Timeline exports and GPX files, and it is part of the one-time paid unlock.
Does it drain the battery walking all day?
Background exploring keeps revealing with the app closed and the screen off, which is the intended way to use it. Battery use depends on your phone and how long you are out.
Does my Krakow map go to a server?
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.
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