FAQ
Is this really free?
100% free. It's a passion project — the whole thing runs on a spare laptop under my desk with a Cloudflare tunnel in front of it, not a data centre. No paid plan, no trial, no credit card. I might add a paid tier one day to cover costs, but the free tier isn't going anywhere.
Do I need an account?
No. You can explore as a guest — no email, no password, nothing handed over. A free account just lets you save your progress across sessions and, once it's ready, appear on the leaderboard.
What do you do with my location?
As little as possible. Your GPS is sent to the server, matched to the nearest road, and then immediately discarded. All I keep is a list of road IDs — plain numbers that mean nothing without the map. No location history, no trail, and nothing I could sell even if I wanted to. See the code on GitHub →
How does a road get marked as explored?
As you drive, the app records GPS points and matches each one to the nearest road within about 20 metres. A single matching point is enough — you don't have to drive the whole length. Divided highways are smart enough to mark both directions when you drive one.
Where does the road data come from?
Every road comes from OpenStreetMap — the free, volunteer-built map of the world — under the Open Database License (ODbL). The database is refreshed from OSM exports periodically. OpenStreetMap →
Which countries can I explore?
Wherever I've imported roads so far — the live list (with road counts) is right on the home page, and it grows as I add regions. If your country isn't there yet, it's likely on the roadmap.
Why is the map limited?
The map tiles come from that same laptop, so the free tier has a daily cap on loading brand-new areas. Places you've already viewed keep working from your device's cache, and the limit resets every day. It's not meant to be punishing — it's just what keeps this runnable on home hardware.
Why does it need "Always" location access?
So tracking keeps running while you drive, even with the app in the background or your screen off. Without it, tracking would pause the moment you switched apps and you'd miss roads you'd actually driven.
Are my photos and drives backed up?
No — memories (photos you pin to roads), drives and history are stored only on your device, and never uploaded. That keeps them private, but it also means if you uninstall the app or lose your phone, they're gone. Use “Export my data” in Settings to keep a copy.
What happens if your server goes down?
Your drives, memories and progress live on your phone, so they stay put. New tracking keeps queuing locally and syncs once the server is back, and map areas you've already loaded keep working. It's one person on home hardware, so the occasional hiccup is possible — I'll give a heads up when I can.
Is it open source?
Yes — the app, website and backend are all on GitHub (a work in progress). The road-data pipeline isn't published, but everything else is there to read. View on GitHub →