Your first outing
This is the whole loop, end to end: add a contact, plan, share, walk, stop. It takes about five minutes the first time and about thirty seconds every time after that.
Before you leave the house
1. Add the people who will follow you
Open the main menu and go to Contacts. Add the people you want to be able to share with. They will be invited, and once they accept you can include them in any outing.
Do this at home, on wifi. The trailhead is the wrong place to discover that somebody has not accepted yet. Full details in Contacts.
File: img/myjikita/first-01-contacts.png
Shows: The contacts list with one accepted contact and one pending
invitation.
2. Download the map area
Main menu → Offline maps → draw a rectangle around where you are going → download. Over wifi, before you leave. This is what makes the map work in a valley with no signal. See Offline maps.
3. Add your route, if you have one
Main menu → Routes → import your GPX file. It will be drawn on your map and can be attached to the outing as your planned route. See GPX routes and tracks.
At the trailhead
4. Plan the outing
Tap Share and fill in the plan:
- Activity — hiking, ski touring, trail running, climbing…
- Place — where you are going, in words.
- Expected return — when you will be back. Be realistic, not optimistic.
- Planned route — your GPX, if you added one.
Why each of these earns its place is explained in What a good plan contains.
File: img/myjikita/first-02-plan.png
Shows: The outing plan form completed, with activity, place and expected
return time.
5. Choose who to share with
Select the contacts who should be able to follow you. They each receive a notification saying that you have shared an outing with them.
6. Start
Tap Start. The map now shows an outing in progress, and your position starts going out at the interval you chose.
File: img/myjikita/first-03-sharing.png
Shows: The map with an outing in progress, the status card at the bottom,
and the SOS button visible.
Then put your phone in your pocket and go. Do not swipe the app away. You do not need to keep the screen on — that is the entire point.
While you are out
- Your position is sent at your chosen interval, and buffered when there is no signal, then sent when there is. Nothing is lost in a valley; it just arrives late. See Coverage and white areas.
- If you drift off your planned route, the app tells you.
- You can send messages to everyone following you from the outing thread. See Messages.
- If something goes wrong, the SOS button is on the map at all times. Read SOS before you need it — it takes one minute and it is not a page to read one-handed in the dark.
When you are back
7. Stop the outing
Open the outing card and tap Stop. This matters:
- It ends the sharing. Your contacts stop seeing a live position.
- It clears the alarm. Nobody is left wondering whether you are overdue.
An outing you forget to stop is worse than useless — it teaches the people following you that your alerts do not mean anything.
File: img/myjikita/first-04-stop.png
Shows: The outing card with the Stop button, and the confirmation dialog.
If you are out of coverage when you stop, that is fine: the app records the stop locally and tells the server as soon as it can.
8. Look at what happened
Your track stays on your phone. It is worth looking at once, for two reasons:
- Check tracking actually worked. Gaps that line up with the screen going off mean a permission is wrong.
- Look at your coverage. The app shows where you had no network. People are usually surprised. If most of your day was a white area, that is a real argument for a Jikita tag or a satellite beacon.
The short version
Contacts → offline map → plan with a return time → pick contacts → Start → phone in pocket → Stop when you are back.