I had a system to randomly choose exercise-walking routes. I put that system aside when the pandemic reared up. The system chose routes that often involved a bus ride to the walk's starting point and/or destination. In these plaguey times, bus rides are only for essential activities. In San Francisco, I could probably ride the bus legally; outdoor recreation is an essential activity; but morally, it was time to come up with a new system. I've been choosing a route by using my brain instead of a system. I'd prefer to think about other things, but not if it means endangering my neighbors' health and safety.
So when some tech news aggregator sites linked to this Atlantic article about the app Randonautica, I paid attention. Reader, I installed the app. Soon it was working as advertised it picked a destination nearby for me to walk to. My brain was free to think about other things! (The app also did some vaguely flâneurish dérivey stuff, but I mostly ignored that.) And so I walked around and saw things like a fish ornament hanging on a tree (4th Avenue near Cabrillo) and some fresh public health art signed by "anna" at Willard below Parnassus.
Then I found out that the Randonautica app can "forget" your destination if you switch away to another app to, say, snap a picture using your phone's camera. That wasn't so great. So I deleted the app. But if something similar comes along that doesn't forget destinations, I'd like to hear about it. Because now I'm back to using my brain to choose my walking destinations and I'd rather keep an eye out for stray fish.
