I really love to walk. Walking is my best way of clearing my thoughts, thinking over something, or even to “un-think” of something. If a place is within walkable distance (and within a reasonable time), I prefer to walk.

Lately, I have been on an evening mapping streak for some days with strolls around my neighborhood. It warms up the body in this colder season and provides a form of physical exercise. And mapping, while I stroll, I can contibute to keep OpenStreetMap (OSM) data updated. Whenever I get to a new place and it’s not on the map, I usually map it on OSM. But mapping during evening strolls is something I resumed after quite a while.

Since I live in Chabahil (a neighborhood in Kathmandu), my walks are mostly around the vicinity (Boudha, Mahankal, Kapan, Kalopul, Naxal, Gaushala, Battisputali, Gahana Pokhari). I observed that many new businesses have opened up and some previous ones closed. Marts, Department Stores, or Fast-Food chains have reached the core of the neighborhood. I guess every tole now has a The Burger House and Crunchy Fried Chicken 😄. And many new tea-houses have opened up (a good news for a chiya lover like me!)

GPX Tracks showing my last 5 walks

GPX Tracks showing my last 5 walks

Considering my last 5 tracks, I walked for a total of (7.89 + 9.63 + 3.87 + 4.46 + 5.11 = 30.96 KM). The time recorded for these tracks is not that much accurate, as often I would meet a friend for a cup of tea and stay within a place for some time (and because I could forget to resume tracking later, I never paused the tracking ). I mapped 105+ Points of Interest (POIs) with what my eyes could catch. It included the following amenities.

restaurant, banquet/events venue, bar, mart, clinic, cafe, electronics store, meat shop, school, college, furniture store, video_game station, shoe store, atm, bakery, pharmacy, dentist, hairdresser, place of worship, cosmetics, veterinary, computer repair store, bank, departmental store, police station, convenience store, clothes store, optician, confectionary/cake, community center, fast food, hotel, automobile center, photography service, servicing center, book store, boutique, toys store, insurance office, complex building, laboratory, fitness center, government office, cooperative

I used OSM Tracker to record the GPX track and Organic Maps to collect the POI. Few things regardng the experience of this that I can recall have been:

  • Given that I have long legs, I walk a little fast. And, it’s not easy to walk slowly to record a POI.
  • Going different paths while starting and returning, will allow to cover more/diverse area.
  • But going the same path while starting and returning, also provides a newer perspective - the thing I missed while starting was likely to be noticed while returning.
  • It was not feasible to record all POIs in a single go (given I had a limited time). I might need to travel the same track again. So, as opposed to One Ring to Rule Them All in The Lord of the Rings, here we need More Walks To Map Them All!
  • I need to be careful while recording the POI - as most of the roads here do not have proper footpaths. So, its safe to stop walking while recording a POI to avoid any accident.

There’s a feeling of accomplishment, both to start the GPX tracking while I leave my house and stop it later when I return and upload my changes to OSM. These evening mapping strolls are also an effort to enrich data for Baato, a maps based APIs service for Nepal using OpenStreetMap data that I am helping to build and grow with my colleagues.

We take things on the map for granted, but the effort of putting things there is something to highlight. A huge shout-out to all the lovely volunteers that are making OpenStreetMap possible. Enriching map data comes at a great cost (voluntary participation/human resource, time, effort, capital, etc.). But if one person can add around 100 POIs, 5 can add more than 500, and so on! I leave the math for the readers.