Go Jauntly’s 2017 stroll-down

It's the end of the year and time to reflect on what we've achieved in 2017. Having written something just before the Christmas break, we've had to do a little re-write!

Since launching our official London Pilot in May we have now amassed an incredible 25,000 downloads. On boxing day and the 27th December we were featured in The Telegraph and the homepage of Apple's App Store, citing Go Jauntly as a life hack. These two events saw our community numbers jump and completely blew the Go Jauntly gang's minds. It also saw our servers go into complete over-drive but after feeding it more mince pies and gingerbread, we were back up and running.

All we've ever wanted to do is build a community to help people discover walks, create their own and share their favourite adventures in the real world with their friends and family. We're so pleased that Go Jauntly has hit the spot for many people and we're truly humbled when we see a new walk added by someone in the community. The health and wellness benefits of walking are obvious and being amongst nature has the power to relax, heal, calm, make you feel more creative and socially connected. It also helps us appreciate our surroundings, our communities and the environment as a whole. If we can help just a few of our new members breakdown the barriers to walking, increase footfall to our local high streets and help adults and children enjoy nature and the outdoors then our aspirations will be realised.

We owe many thanks to a lot of people as Go Jauntly is made up of lots of volunteers, Jauntstar Champions, friends, partners, kids, Jauntsters and organisations who've helped us reach the kind of awareness we thought we might be only dreaming of. Being featured in Positive News, BBC Focus Online, Gov Lab and Springwise when we first launched helped validate our efforts. Partnering with The Woodland Trust and helping them to share the beauty of ancient trees and protected woodlands with new audiences is also key to our mission.

Another big moment in 2017 for us was our first exhibition at the Cycling and Walking Innovations at the Kia Oval. We got to meet some great exhibitors and visitors alike and Hana was invited to speak as part of the event's Innovation Showcase. Representing walking at a very cycle-oriented day and getting a chance to demo Go Jauntly to Jesse Norman MP, and Under Secretary of State for the Department for Transport - it was a lot of fun! Here's hoping that further opportunities open for us in 2018 and we can continue to make a positive social impact through our technology for good.

Before we sign off for 2017, we wanted to share some in-app highlights from the year...

1. The most searched for location in the app include: London! Phew. Closely followed by… Sheffield. This is in-line the fact that we wanted Sheffield to be our next pilot city. The Mancunians have been searching for walks and we listened and are pleased to announce that the Urban Wanderer is now mapping her favourite Manchester jaunts among others, whoop!

2. Are you wondering what everyone was looking for on a walk? Walks perfect for you and your canine friends. Woof!

3. What what were your favourite collections? It’s no surprise that lots of you use ‘Nearby Jaunts and ‘Newest Walks’, us too! We’ve also had fun adding and mixing up collections each month since we brought in this feature. Wellbeing Walks and Woodland Walks co-created with The Woodland Trust have also proved popular.

4. Our most favourited walk in the app was none other than ‘Life & Death in Crossbones Yard’, a gem of a walk filled with history in Southwark, London.

5. We couldn’t create a highlights post and not feature our most liked image on instagram, of our beautiful friend here in the Peak District, captured by our very own Sarah Hodges and amassing over 300 likes.

Look out for a blog in the new year where we plan to share our favourite new walks from the community and what we plan to do in 2018...

Lots of love from,

Hana and Steve (co-founders) xxx