About
About this site
A step calculator, twenty researched walking routes, and a set of articles about what step counts actually measure.
What this is
calculatesteps.com does one thing: it converts a distance between two places into a number of steps, and then explains what that number is worth. The calculator handles arbitrary places. The route pages cover twenty specific walks in detail, including four distances that cannot be walked at all.
The articles exist because the step count is a more slippery measure than it appears. It depends on your height, your pace, the surface, the gradient, where you carry your phone, and which algorithm the manufacturer chose. Anyone publishing step numbers has an obligation to say what they rest on, which is what the methodology page is for.
Who writes it
The site is written and maintained by Michael Sally, based near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He also builds and writes several other calculator and outdoor-activity sites, including calculaterun.com, calculatewalk.com, calculatehike.com and calculatebike.com.
He is not a physician, a physiologist, or a sports scientist. Where this site describes health research, it summarises published studies and links to them so you can read the original. Where it makes a claim about distance or terrain, it says where the figure came from. Where something is an estimate, it is labelled as one.
How the routes are researched
Each route page starts from published distance data for the specific walk — mapping sources, official site information, and in some cases the operator's own published figures. Terrain is described from documented characteristics of the route: gradient, surface, elevation change, and known constraints such as stairs or closures.
Step counts on route pages are derived from the researched distance rather than the calculator's street-factor estimate, and are adjusted where surface or gradient materially affects stride length. Those adjustments are stated on the page rather than folded silently into the number.
Historical and background material is drawn from published sources. Where an account is contested — the story about the view from Agra Fort is the clearest case — the page says so rather than repeating the version that makes the better story.
How it pays for itself
The site carries advertising through Google AdSense. Advertisers have no involvement in what is written here, no advance sight of it, and no ability to request changes. There is no sponsored content and no affiliate linking on this site.
Details of what advertising means for your data are in the privacy policy.
Getting in touch
Corrections, disputed figures and route suggestions are all welcome. The contact page has the details, and the editorial policy explains how corrections are handled.