What it costs
Free to play. $19.99 a year for the whole map.
No adverts, no accounts, and nothing that nags a child into asking you for money. You can play forever without paying us anything.
Always
Free
No limit, no trial, no catch.
Play Anywhere builds a deck for wherever you already are — a trail, a backyard, a sidewalk, the long way home. Tell it roughly what is around you and it deals cards that fit. This never costs anything and never runs out.
Three featured places are free too, and you choose which three. They are yours permanently.
The Explorer Pass
$19.99 a year
or $49.99 once, with nothing to renew
Opens every featured place we have written — parks and historic sites with challenges researched for that exact spot — and every one we add afterwards, at no extra cost.
Anywhere you have already played stays yours whether you buy it or not. Nothing is ever taken away.
Why three places are free
Because a featured place is not one afternoon. Each has more challenges than a single visit can use, so you go back, and when you have found every one of them the place is yours — a crest with your family's name on it.
Three free places is exactly one region. Spend them in the same area and you will finish a whole region and earn its crest without paying anything. That is deliberate. We would rather you knew what the game actually is before deciding whether it is worth twenty dollars.
What you would spend instead
This is not competing with other apps. It is competing with whatever else you do on a Saturday, and that is the honest comparison:
- Children’s museum membership$120–180 a year
- Zoo membership$100–150 a year
- Trampoline park, family of four$60–100 a visit
- Cinema, family of four$50–60 a visit
- Game Outside, a whole year$19.99
A year of weekends for less than one rainy afternoon indoors. And unlike a membership, it does not expire into nothing — the places you finished stay finished.
The things people ask
Do I need an account?
No, and there isn't one to make. Your purchase is tied to your App Store or Google Play account, and “Restore a purchase” on the parents screen brings it back on a new phone.
Does the yearly pass renew?
Yes, unless you cancel it — in your App Store or Google Play settings, not here, because we have no way to reach your subscription. If you would rather not think about it, the $49.99 one-time option has nothing to cancel.
What happens when the pass runs out?
Play Anywhere keeps working forever, and so do your three free places and anywhere you had already played. You lose access to the rest of the map, not to your own history.
Are there adverts or tracking?
None. No advertising, no analytics, no account. Photos and finished adventures stay on your phone. The privacy policy is short and says what it means.
Some places say they are free — why?
A sponsor is funding them. A tourism board or park system can pay for a whole region so every family plays it for nothing, and they are credited on the place's page. Those never count against your three.
Start with the free three
Play Anywhere costs nothing, forever. Decide about the rest later.