Lost Theory · iPhone & Apple Watch
四国八十八ヶ所巡礼
Available Now
The 88-temple Shikoku pilgrimage, 1,125 km, walked with the steps you already take. Each temple unlocks its history, its rituals and its stamp when you reach it.
Each app covers one complete route. It has its own guide, its own avatars, its own collection and its own Apple Watch app, and it is a single purchase with no subscription.
The 88-temple Shikoku pilgrimage, 1,125 km, walked with the steps you already take. Each temple unlocks its history, its rituals and its stamp when you reach it.
The Pacific Crest Trail, 2,653 miles from the Mexican border to Manning Park. Your steps move you through the desert, the Sierra and the Cascades, and the Field Journal records the species you pass.
The Camino de Santiago on one of three routes. Your steps move you stage by stage across Spain, and town stamps collect in a pilgrim credential as you go.
Routes and stage counts are set. Screens are still in development. Both are scheduled for release before the end of 2026.
The Appalachian Trail, 2,197 miles from Springer Mountain to Katahdin across fourteen states, with eastern woodland species in the Field Journal.
The Via Francigena, 1,900 km from Canterbury to Rome, following the 79 stages Archbishop Sigeric recorded in the year 990.
Both series use the same step engine and the same Apple Watch app. They differ in the kind of route they cover and in what you collect along it.
Temples, cathedrals, albergues and hospices unlock as you reach them, each with its own history and customs. Stamps collect in a book as you go, and guided meditations are available at each stop.
The route is divided into sections with their own terrain, elevation and conditions. Resupply towns arrive as milestones, and the Field Journal teaches you the species that live in the section you are currently walking through.
A third series, History & Mystery Steps, is scheduled for 2027: the Silk Road, plus city routes through Paris, Venice, Tokyo and Beijing.
Six screens from the three apps you can walk today or in September. Same engine underneath, different country on top.
The same step engine, Watch app and Health integration across the catalogue. What changes between apps is the route and its content.
Apple HealthKit reads your daily step count on your device and converts it to distance along the route. No GPS tracking and no workout to start.
Temples, passes, cathedrals and resupply towns unlock as you reach them. Historical material is checked against primary sources in the local language.
Kōbō Daishi on the Temple Path, a naturalist on the PCT. 900+ entries of historical, cultural and natural-history content, keyed to your position on the route.
Walk the same route as a group, with everyone on one shared map.
Log daily water intake, which affects your walking pace. Includes reminders, weekly trends and a pace impact figure.
Every app is fully localized in English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Chinese, including place names and historical material.
Every app goes beyond counting steps. Track your daily walking, build streaks, and watch consistency turn into distance on whichever route you are walking.
A daily calendar shows your walking at a glance. Completed days build into weeks and months of continuous practice.
Daily, weekly, monthly and yearly step history in charts, with average pace, total distance and trends over time.
Set a personal step goal, with a small celebration when you hit it. Reaching your goal every day builds your streak and earns patches.
Build daily walking streaks and hit milestones at 7, 30, 100, and 365 days. Your streak sits on your profile for other walkers to see.
Each app has its own set of hand-drawn characters, drawn for that route. Your avatar appears on the map and in any walking group you join.
The Shikoku pilgrimage is rarely walked alone, and neither is a thru-hike. Invite friends and family into a group, follow each other on the shared map, and mark arrivals together. Available in Sacred Steps: The Temple Path now, and coming to the other apps.
Private groups for friends or public communities. Up to 30 walkers per group.
Every member's position on the route, with colour-coded avatars.
A live feed of group achievements, arrivals and encouragement from the people walking with you.
Send themed messages of support, from temple bells to cheers for the people ahead of you.
Get notified when someone in the group reaches a new waypoint, and mark it together.
Weekly step rankings within your group.
Each route has its own collection, taken from what walkers on that route actually gather.
Each of the 88 temples adds its stamp to the nōkyōchō when you arrive. The calligraphy and seal are specific to that temple, matching the book a walking pilgrim carries around Shikoku.
88 temple stamps
Towns, albergues and churches along the route each have their own sello. They collect in a pilgrim credential as you cross Spain, as they do for walkers claiming a compostela in Santiago.
Stamps in every town
The Field Journal records 102 species. Each one is keyed to the section of trail where it actually occurs, so what you can record changes as you move north.
102 species
Cross into new country and the app tells you what you have found. A Red Diamond Rattlesnake on a rock in the chaparral. A Greater Roadrunner in the scrub. The discovery arrives with the miles that earned it.
Then it opens into a real entry: an illustration, the scientific name, the range, the habitat, how the animal makes its living, and when you are likely to meet it. This is the app’s own text for that rattlesnake.
This handsome viper, patterned in brick-red diamonds above a black-and-white banded tail, is nearly endemic to the chaparral and sage scrub of far southern California and Baja. A patient ambush hunter, it waits along rodent trails for rabbits and ground squirrels, delivering venom through hinged fangs. For all its size and armament, it is famously mild-mannered, more inclined to freeze or retreat than to defend itself.Red Diamond Rattlesnake · Crotalus ruber · Stage 1
There are 102 of these, and you cannot get to them out of order. The app knows which section of trail you are standing in and offers only what lives there, so what there is to discover changes as you walk north.
102 species on the PCT. The Appalachian Trail has its own set, drawn from the eastern woodlands.
In addition to its main collection, every app has 30+ patches of its own for distance milestones, streaks, wellness goals and seasonal dates. The Temple Path set is shown below.
Every app includes an Apple Watch companion that shows progress, current waypoint and streak without opening the phone.
Two progress rings: daily steps and progress through the current stage, plus your current waypoint and streak.
Current counts from the app’s collection: stamps on the pilgrim routes, species on the hiking trails.
One entry from the app’s content set each day, synced from the route you are walking.
Guided breathing with haptic feedback, available at any point on the route.
Recent waypoint arrivals, milestones and patches, synced from the iPhone app.
From beta testers around the world, on Sacred Steps: The Temple Path.
"This app completely changed my daily walks. I used to just zone out, but now I look forward to reaching the next temple. The wisdom teachings are beautiful and the detail in the temple history is incredible."
"毎晩妻と二人で散歩するのが日課です。グループ機能でお互いの進捗が見えるので、どちらかが新しいお寺に到着すると通知が届きます。おかげで散歩が何倍も楽しくなりました。"
"我在大学研究过日本佛教，这款应用内容的准确性和深度让我惊叹。弘法大师的教导非常真实，而且支持七种语言！这是一款用心之作。"
"I bought this to motivate me to walk more after knee surgery. Four months later I've hit my 10,000 step goal every day for 60 days straight. The streak tracker and patches keep me going. Best purchase I've made."
"Die App ist wunderschön gestaltet und komplett auf Deutsch verfügbar. Die Meditationen am Morgen vor dem Loslaufen sind mein neues Ritual geworden. Endlich eine Schritt-App mit Seele."
"四国に住んでいながら、まだお遍路を歩いたことがなかった。このアプリで毎日の通勤の歩数が巡礼の一歩になり、地元のお寺の歴史も学べる。感動しています。"
"Camino todos los días por el Paseo de Gracia y ahora cada paso tiene un propósito. La traducción al español es perfecta y las enseñanzas zen me ayudan a empezar el día con calma. Mi grupo de amigas y yo competimos por llegar al siguiente templo."
"Une application d’une rare élégance. Les méditations guidées avant chaque temple sont magnifiques, et le contenu sur le bouddhisme Shingon est d’une profondeur remarquable. C’est bien plus qu’un compteur de pas."
"No subscriptions, no ads, no data harvesting. Just a beautifully crafted walking experience. I appreciate that everything is included for one price. Rare to find these days."
Each app is a single purchase. No subscriptions, no in-app purchases, no ads, and no part of the route locked behind a payment.
Yes. Each route is a separate app with its own content and collection, and each is a one-time purchase. None of them carry a subscription.
Sacred Steps: The Temple Path is the pilgrimage app: 88 temples, guided meditations, a stamp book. Nature Steps: The PCT is the hiking app: 2,653 miles, five sections, 102 species in the Field Journal. Both use the same step engine, so the second one you buy will work the way the first one did.
Yes. Each app reads the same step count from Apple Health, so one day of walking advances every app you have installed.
Apple Health supplies your daily step count. The app converts it to distance using your stride length and applies it to the route. There is no GPS tracking and no workout to start.
Yes. Your health data never leaves your device without explicit consent. Step data is read from Apple HealthKit and processed locally. We do not collect, store or transmit your health information. Optional iCloud sync uses Apple’s end-to-end encryption.
Not yet. The step engine, the Watch app and the Health integration are built on Apple frameworks. Android is planned after The Road to Rome is released.
History & Mystery Steps, scheduled for 2027. History Steps opens with the Silk Road. Mystery Steps applies the same engine to city routes through Paris, Venice, Tokyo and Beijing, with puzzles and historical content at waypoints.
Notes on the routes, the research behind them and how the apps are built.
Nature Steps: The PCT is out. What 2,650 miles of trail actually crosses, and why the Field Journal hands you different species every few hundred miles.
What the research says about daily walking: mortality, mood, sleep and memory, and where the evidence is thinner than it looks.
Seven errors that have propagated through the English-language guidebooks, corrected against Japanese sources.
One email on release day. No newsletter, no promotions.