It was getting a GPS watch that started me on the road to becoming a walker.
I'd given up smoking a few months earlier and I wanted to do a bit more exercise than I'd been doing.
My wife would often drive to Canterbury for a 'pampering' session of some sort on a Saturday. Canterbury is just over 6 miles away and we live near an off-road track that goes to Canterbury and passes through woods and farmland. So I started walking to Canterbury to meet my wife after her sessions, and be driven home again. I used to be very proud of myself for walking more than 6 miles!
Then her 'pampering place' moved to St Margaret's-at-Cliffe which is a few miles along the coast from Dover. So I went with her and filled my 2-hour wait with walking along the clifftop and exploring paths in the area. 2 hours equalled about 8 miles, which I thought was amazing!
So I'd begun to walk for pleasure, but only really on Saturdays.
Then I was given a Garmin Vivoactive watch for my birthday. I set it up and headed out for a 4 mile test walk. I was hooked! I could see exactly how far I'd walked and exactly how fast I was walking, and I started to go further (and faster, but that was less important). I wondered if I could walk to a certain point and back and whether I could do 10, 15 and 20 miles. I felt a huge sense of achievement when I first walked a new record distance (and I still do!).
I owe all of that to the GPS watch. Yes, a phone can perform many of the same functions, but a phone would never have got me doing what I did.