Walking games
A free alternative to The Conqueror Challenges, and what you give up
Short answer: there is no free version of The Conqueror, but you can rebuild most of it for $0. Thru and Lord of the Steps give you a long virtual route, and Garfunkel Walk adds Street View on a route you draw. No free app replaces the medal in the post. The single Conqueror challenges we priced cost $39.98 to $56.98 delivered on 4 October 2026.
The Conqueror Challenges sells virtual routes. You log your walking, a marker moves along Rome or Route 66, postcards unlock on the way, and a medal arrives in the post when you finish. This page prices each route per mile from The Conqueror's own checkout pages, then names a free stand-in for each paid part.
A disclosure first: we make Chonky Corgo. Chonky Corgo sits in the comparison table below with its weakness written down, and it is a different kind of app, so read that row with care.
How much does The Conqueror cost in 2026?
The Conqueror Challenges has no free tier. On 4 October 2026 its US site charged $32.99 to $42.99 for a standard single challenge, plus $5.99 or $6.99 tracked shipping for the medal. Licensed challenges such as IT and Corpse Bride cost $49.99 plus $6.99 shipping. Bundles of 5, 10 or 15 challenges ship free.
Each paid entry includes tracking in The Conqueror's app, virtual postcards along the route, a digital certificate and the finisher medal. Many routes also have Street View, though English Channel does not. The Rome entry adds 5 real trees planted, according to its page. The Conqueror's app is free to download, and the challenges are what you pay for.
What does The Conqueror cost per mile?
The price per challenge barely moves, but the routes in this table run from 21 miles to 2,280 miles. So the cost per mile swings from about $1.90 to about 2 cents. Short city routes cost the most per mile. Route 66 costs the least, though at 2 miles a day it takes more than three years.
| Option | Route length | Price with shipping | Cost per mile |
|---|---|---|---|
| English Channel (single) | 21 miles | $32.99 + $6.99 = $39.98 | $1.90 |
| Rome City (single) | 34 miles | $33.99 + $5.99 = $39.98 | $1.18 |
| Corpse Bride (licensed single) | 97 km, about 60 miles | $49.99 + $6.99 = $56.98 | about $0.95 |
| IT (licensed single) | 89 miles | $49.99 + $6.99 = $56.98 | $0.64 |
| Starter Pack: Athens, Tokyo and Angkor Wat, 3 medals | 91 miles in all | $78.49 + $20.97 = $99.46 | $1.09 |
| Any 5 bundle | Your picks | $199.99, free shipping ($40.00 a challenge) | $1.18 if each pick is Rome's 34 miles |
| Any 10 bundle | Your picks | $375.92, free shipping ($37.59 a challenge) | $1.11 at 34 miles each |
| Any 15 bundle | Your picks | $527.99, free shipping ($35.20 a challenge) | $1.04 at 34 miles each |
| Route 66 (single) | 2,280 miles | $42.99 + $6.99 = $49.98 | about 2 cents |
The Starter Pack row is the easy one to get wrong. The Starter Pack page shows $78.49, but its checkout adds $20.97 of shipping for three medals, so it lands at $99.46. So the Starter Pack costs $1.09 a mile, not the 86 cents the page price suggests. The bundles avoid this, because their checkout shows free shipping.
Is there a cheaper way to buy The Conqueror?
There are two. Packs and bundles bring the price per medal down, to $33.15 in the Starter Pack and $35.20 in the Any 15 bundle, shipping included. The Conqueror's help center also describes a digital-only entry, bought inside the app, with no medal, no apparel and no donation. The help page gives no prices.
The Conqueror's US App Store listing shows in-app items at $19.99 and $29.99, such as Route 66 at $19.99 and The Lord of the Rings at $29.99. Neither the listing nor the help page says what each item includes, so this page does not assume those are the digital-only entries.
What free apps replace each part of The Conqueror?
Split The Conqueror into its parts and most of them have a free stand-in. Thru and Lord of the Steps give you a long virtual route. Garfunkel Walk puts Street View on a route between any two cities. Thru adds landmark check-ins and trail badges in place of postcards. Nothing free replaces the medal.
| App | Price (US) | Route | Postcards or landmarks | Street View | Physical medal | Real weakness |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple Fitness (built in) | Free on iPhone and Apple Watch | None | None | No | No. Digital awards for streaks, records and Monthly Challenges | No route or story at all, and the awards follow your rings, not the miles you walk |
| The Conqueror Challenges (the baseline) | $39.98 to $56.98 for a delivered single | 21 to 2,280 miles on real places | Virtual postcards | On many routes, not all | Yes, mailed when you finish | You pay again for every route, and a short city route costs up to $1.90 a mile |
| Thru: Virtual Hiking | Free, no purchases listed | Long US trails such as the Pacific Crest Trail and the Appalachian Trail | Landmark check-ins and trail badges | No | No | An illustrated map with no Street View, and only 108 ratings so far |
| Lord of the Steps | Free, no purchases listed | One 2,865 km fantasy route through 18 milestones | 18 milestones | No | No | One route only, and the app is new: first released in March 2026, with 238 ratings |
| Garfunkel Walk | Free, no purchases listed | Any route between two cities you pick | Landmark discovery | Yes | No | Four ratings in all, so there is almost no track record to judge it by |
| Fantasy Hike | Free with a daily distance limit. $6.99 Unlimited Distance, or Premium from $1.99 | One fantasy trail to Mount Fire | Fantasy characters to race along the trail | No | No | The free tier caps how far you move each day, and the one trail ends |
| Chonky Corgo (ours) | Free to download. Optional Chonky Club at $2.99 a month, Gems, playsets and No Banner Ads at $5.99 | No real route. A 5-chapter Main Story and 8 regions | Story chapters and keepsakes | No | No. A digital reward at the end of each chapter | No medal and no real places, so it is a game rather than a virtual race. Signed-in adults see a banner ad by default until they switch it off in Settings or buy No Banner Ads, and it has no ratings yet |
Free virtual routes used to come with a fitness tracker. Fitbit's Adventures unlocked scenic virtual trails as you walked, until Fitbit removed Adventures and Challenges from its app on 27 March 2023, as Engadget reported when Fitbit announced the change. Today the free virtual routes come from small apps like Thru and Garfunkel Walk.
What do you give up with a free alternative?
Mostly the medal. The Conqueror mails a physical finisher medal for every standard entry you complete, and none of the free apps here send anything. You also give up the licensed routes, such as Corpse Bride and IT, the trees The Conqueror plants for each entry, and Street View on routes somebody else designed.
If the medal on the wall is what gets you out the door, pay for it, because a free app will not fill that gap. If the route is what you want, a free app does the same job, and in Garfunkel Walk you can draw a new route the day the old one ends.
Where does Chonky Corgo fit?
Chonky Corgo is not a route app, so it replaces the reason to walk rather than the map. In version 2.0, every 250 steps from Apple Health charge one attack on the day's pixel monster. Each goal day moves a Main Story of 5 chapters forward, and each chapter ends with a digital reward. Nothing arrives in the post.
The tradeoff is real. Chonky Corgo has no real places, so you will not walk the Colosseum or Route 66 in it, and a daily walker finishes the Main Story in about 90 goal days in version 2.0. If you want a race with a finish line and a keepsake, Fantasy Hike alternatives covers more trail apps.
Which option is cheapest for the miles you walk?
Work it out from your own pace, which Apple Health shows as walking distance. At 2 miles a day, Rome's 34 miles last 17 days for $39.98, about $2.35 a day. Route 66 lasts more than three years for $49.98. A free app costs nothing at any pace, however fast you walk.
Per medal, the Starter Pack cost least of the options in the table, at $33.15 each with shipping, then the Any 15 bundle at $35.20. A fast walker on short city routes pays the most per mile. A steady walker on one long route pays almost nothing per mile, but waits years for the medal.
How did we check all this?
Every price on this page was read on 4 October 2026 from The Conqueror's own challenge pages and checkout pages, in US dollars. App details come from each US App Store listing and Apple's public lookup service on the same day. We did not buy a challenge or install the free apps. Prices change, so check them again.
What else do people ask?
Three questions people ask once they have priced The Conqueror and started to wonder about the free route. Each answer comes from The Conqueror's own pages or an App Store listing, read on 4 October 2026, so check the prices again if you read this much later.
- Is The Conqueror Challenges app free?
- The Conqueror Challenges app is free to download, but the challenges are not. On 4 October 2026 a single US challenge cost $32.99 to $49.99 before medal shipping, and the site showed no free tier.
- Does a digital-only Conqueror entry include a medal?
- No. The Conqueror's help center says a digital-only challenge leaves out the medal and the apparel, and no donation is made to its partners. Digital-only entries are bought inside the app through the App Store or Google Play.
- Is there a free Lord of the Rings walking challenge?
- The Conqueror sells the official Lord of the Rings challenges. Lord of the Steps, a free iPhone app listed under the developer name Ainur Khakimov, describes a 2,865 km walk from the Shire to Mount Doom. The Lord of the Steps listing showed no in-app purchases on 4 October 2026.
