Ingress: Tips for the Sojourner

This is the sojourners medal.

It’s probably the easiest and hardest medal to achieve in Ingress. Easy, because all you have to do is to go out there, find a portal, and hack it. Hard, because there are days when the last thing you want to do is go anywhere, whether you are sick, busy, behind schedule, or the weather is more than unpleasant. Those days, where you just ‘don’ wanna’.

The sojourner’s medal is earned by hacking an Ingress portal once a day, on consecutive days, or, as the medal says: “hack a portal within consecutive 24-hour periods”. Here are a few tips on how not to miss a day.

Hack Every Day

Sounds obvious, right? And easy. Just remind yourself of that, the next time you’re making excuses not to go out, whether they’re valid or not. While it only takes 15 days to earn the lowest tier of this medal, it’s going to take almost a year to achieve the highest tier, and that counter resets if you miss a day.

Hack Twice a Day

So, if hacking once a day is going to be so hard, why should you bother trying for twice a day? Because twice a day means you are hacking every 12 hours. It means you can miss the 12-hour period by a few hours and it doesn’t matter. If you miss the 24-hour hack by a few hours, you’ll lose your streak. Hacking twice a day removes that risk, and any stress you might feel about getting out there to hack. Hacking twice a day lets you sleep in, or stay out late and party.

Three Times a Day—or More— is Better

Before work, after work, and lunch, if you’re in an area that allows it. Hacking more is better.

Work it Into a Routine

Go for a walk, hack a portal. Go for a half-hour walk in the morning, and another in the evening. Make it part of your fitness routine. Remember that continuous walking is better for you than stop-start walking, so you can either hack as you go past a portal, and not stop, or you can hack one portal and then put your phone away and focus on your fitness for the next thirty minutes, or keep your phone away until you’re finished and use a slow wander through the portals as part of your cool-down. If you make it a habit, it’s harder to forget.

And that’s pretty much all I’ve got. If you can think of another way to make sure you do that daily hack, let me know in the comments below.