Mystery Destination Tips: How to Find All Three Spots Faster

Mystery Destination is the walking game where the app hides a real place near you and gives you nothing but a compass: a direction, a rounded distance and a sense of how warm you are. Find it, and the compass swings to the next one, three spots in all. It's hot and cold for grown-ups, and once you've played a couple you start to notice there's a real skill to it. This post is about that skill. For the rules themselves, the Mystery Destination game page covers how the game works. Mystery Destination is coming soon in the next app update for iPhone and Android, so this is your head start.

Start somewhere with places to find

The app picks real spots near you: a landmark, a sight worth seeing, a park or garden, a square, a marina, a hiking area, a café or a bakery. Each one is 400 to 900 metres from the last, so a full mystery usually covers somewhere between one and three kilometres.

That means where you start shapes the whole game. Start from a town centre, a high street or the edge of a big park and the app has plenty of interesting places to choose from. Start from the middle of a quiet housing estate and the nearest café might be the best it can do. If there aren't enough real places close by, the app says so instead of inventing some. Head somewhere livelier and try again.

Streets don't follow the needle

The needle points as the crow flies. Streets don't. The fastest players don't march in the needle's direction until they hit a wall. They look for the street that heads roughly the right way and keeps going.

When the compass says due north, find the longest road that runs northish and take it, even if it's 30 degrees off. You'll correct as you go. Rivers, railways and big parks are the traps: if there's one between you and the spot, think about where the crossings are before you commit to a side.

Watch the needle as well as the distance. If the needle swings round to point behind you, you've walked past the spot on a parallel street, so take the next turn back toward it. If the needle stays pointing sideways while the distance barely moves, you're circling it. Both are signs to stop following the road you're on and take the next street that turns toward the needle.

Trust the bands, not the number

The distance under the compass is rounded on purpose: to the nearest 10 metres when you're close and to the nearest 50 metres further out. So a number ticking down by 50 doesn't tell you as much as you'd think. The warmth label does:

• Far: more than 600 metres away.
• Getting closer: within 600 metres.
• Warm: within 300 metres.
• Hot: within 150 metres.
• Almost there: within 60 metres.

Your phone gives a little tick every time you move into a warmer band, and that tick is your best friend. If you walk a full block and the band drops back a step, you've gone the wrong way. Turn around straight away rather than hoping the next corner fixes it.

Think about what it could be

By the time you're Hot, stop staring at the compass and look up. You're within 150 metres of a real place, and the kinds of places on the list are things you can spot from the pavement. Is there a café on the corner? A gate into a small garden? A square opening up at the end of the street? Some spots were suggested by other walkers and come with a little riddle, which is often the quickest clue of all.

Guessing the place before you reach it is the most satisfying part of the game, and it gets you there faster because you stop zigzagging. It also helps to remember the spacing: the next spot is always 400 to 900 metres from the last one, so right after you find a spot, a reading of Far or Getting closer is normal and nothing to worry about.

Use I'm here when the GPS struggles

You don't need to press anything when you arrive. A spot counts by itself once your GPS puts you within about 50 metres, even with your phone in your pocket. But between tall buildings the GPS can wobble, and you can find yourself standing right outside the place with nothing happening. Once you reach Almost there, an I'm here button appears. It works within about 60 metres, so use it instead of pacing up and down.

Don't rush, and don't quit too early

A mystery ends 24 hours after it starts, which is plenty of time. There's no prize for speed, so a wrong turn costs you a few minutes, not the game. Slow down at junctions, check the band, and pick your street. You can only have one mystery going at a time, and if you do need to stop early with End mystery, you keep the XP you've already earned, so a half-solved mystery is never wasted.

The rewards are worth finishing for: 30 XP for each spot, 60 XP more for finding all three, so 150 XP for a full mystery, plus a chance at a free Premium day when you solve it (at most once a day and three times a month). The spots go in order and moves faster than anyone can walk are rejected, so there's no point trying to shortcut it in a car. You'll also never be sent to a spot you suggested yourself.

On the free plan, a mystery uses one of your six weekly game starts, shared across all the games. Premium has no limit.

Bring someone to argue with

A mystery is a solo game, but the walk it runs on can have company. Arguing about which way the needle really means, and whether that bakery could be the spot, is half the fun. Your walk report keeps a list of every mystery place you found, with star pins on the route map, so afterwards you've got a little record of the corners you discovered together.

Mystery Destination is built for both iPhone and Android and is coming in the next Walk With Me update. Download the app now and it'll appear in your games menu when the update lands. The Mystery Destination game page has the rules, our Waypoint Hunt tips cover the game with pins and riddles, and the walking games hub has the rest. Walk With Me is free on iOS and Android.