Danny Healy came from Sydney keen to enjoy Dunedin's walking tracks, but struggled to find where they were.
Now, with some help from the Dunedin City Council, he has developed an app that will direct people by map and voice to 34 tracks.
The app will also provide information on the tracks, including whether they are dog, pram or wheelchair-friendly, and include a link to bus route information.
As well as bush walks, it features the city's street art trail.
And while he does not expect the app to make money, he says the benefit it will bring to himself and others makes it worthwhile.
Mr Healy, from Coogee in Sydney, said he arrived in Dunedin with his Dunedin-born wife Nicky and 2-year-old daughter Alex mid-2014.
"One of the drawcards coming here was having access to the outdoors.''
He thought because he was not far from the Otago Peninsula it would be easy to find walking tracks to take advantage of that access.
"It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be.''
While the Dunedin City Council did have information on walks, they were in PDF format, and without a printer it was difficult to use them.
"It got to a point where I was just driving around with my wife and my 2-year-old looking for signs for the trails.
"I just thought if there was a mobile application for this I could press a button and get voice instructions on how to find it, and I thought, ‘Surely, other people would be interested in that'.''
He was "greatly assisted'' by council economic development and parks staff, and also got help from Startup, a joint University of Otago, Otago Polytechnic and Dunedin City Council project that arose from Dunedin's economic development strategy.
That helped him quantify how big the market was for such an idea, and what the business opportunity was.
"Ironically, it worked out that it's not a great business opportunity.
"I sort of knew that going in, but it really helped drill down on exactly how bad it was.''
However, Mr Healy said he was always going to build the app, for use by himself and others, and for a sort of practice run at product development, an area he was keen to get into.
"I thought this is a really good opportunity to build something useful.''
It may prove useful for Mr Healy for some time, as he is enjoying his new home.
"I love it, mate, I'm absolutely loving it.''
The finished product will be available in app stores on Wednesday.
