For social secs and society committees

The pub crawl app for students

Plan the route once, everyone joins by scanning a QR code, and on the night you check in as you go so the group can see which pub everyone is actually in — the bit that matters in freshers week, when half the flat leaves the SU at different times.

Get the app free Find student pubs near you
The Out feed showing a friend's check-in at a London pub with a photo, a caption and replies.
A crawl in progress: the current pub, a Check In button, the shared game code and the players online.
The Explore tab listing curated pub routes, each with its stop count, walking distance and rating.
The Venues tab showing nearby bars and pubs with ratings and distance.
A map of every pub you have visited, clustered by area, with a running total.
A user profile showing crawl stats, a pubs-visited map and recent achievement badges.

What it does

  • Builds the route. Set a location, a stop count and how long you want the walks, and it plans a route on real walking directions — or hand-pick every pub and run the optimiser for the shortest loop.
  • Gets everyone on it. Share a join code and a QR code; everyone lands on the same crawl, same stops, same order, live on their own phone. Joining needs a free account.
  • Shows who is out. Check in at each pub and your friends see which one you are in for about three hours — every new check-in tops it up. Latecomers walk straight to the group instead of ringing round.
  • Keeps the night. Any check-in can be a post — a photo and a caption, to your friends, with likes and replies. Crawl photos land in one shared reel, not twenty camera rolls.
  • Handles a pub falling through. If a stop is shut or rammed, the host skips it and the app drops in a nearby replacement; everyone's phone updates.
  • Runs the games. Pub Golf scorecards and a live leaderboard when you want a game on.

Free covers routes of up to five stops, three saved routes, a crawl for up to eight people, check-ins, posts and photos that stay. A society crawl of fifteen to twenty needs the host on Premium — that lifts the group cap, takes routes to twelve stops and unlocks Pub Golf and the Forfeit and Waterfall wheel games for everyone on the crawl. Nobody else pays.

Running it well. Pick a midweek night, put the biggest pub first, and keep the walks short. Build a soft round into the middle and choose venues with proper alcohol-free options, so not drinking never needs explaining. Being shown as out is accepted friends only — never the public, never someone who has only sent a request — and new accounts are private by default.

Download on the App Store Get it on Google Play

Common questions

How many pubs should a student pub crawl have?

Four to six. Allow about forty-five minutes per stop once you include walking, ordering and waiting for stragglers, so five pubs is roughly a four-hour night, and groups that plan eight or nine almost always lose people by the fourth. In the app a free route holds up to five stops, and Premium takes that to twelve — five is genuinely the right number for a first-year crawl anyway.

What is the best night to run a freshers pub crawl?

Midweek, usually Tuesday or Wednesday. Pubs are quieter so a group of twenty actually gets served, door staff are far more relaxed about large groups arriving together, and student nights and drinks deals cluster Monday to Wednesday. Saturday sounds right and is the hardest night to run a big group on.

How much should a student pub crawl cost per person?

Set the number before you publish the plan, because that is what decides who comes. In most UK cities a five-stop crawl where everyone buys their own drink lands somewhere between fifteen and thirty pounds a head depending on the city and what people are drinking. Say the figure up front, pick at least two stops that are genuinely cheap, and make clear that soft drinks are fine at any of them.

Can we do a crawl with more than 8 people?

Yes, but the host needs Premium. A crawl created by a free account is capped at eight players, and that cap is on the crawl rather than on each person, so for a society social of fifteen to twenty the organiser is the one who needs to upgrade and nobody else pays anything. The same applies to Pub Golf and to routes longer than five stops — it is all keyed to whoever is hosting.

Is PubCrawl free for students, and what actually costs money?

The free tier covers a real crawl: build or generate routes with up to five stops, keep up to three of your own routes, run a classic crawl for up to eight people, check in at every pub, take photos at each stop that stay afterwards, and use the Categories, No Names and Buy a Drink wheel games. Premium is what a big society crawl needs — groups over eight, up to twelve stops, unlimited routes, Pub Golf scoring, the Forfeit and Waterfall wheel games and no ads. Only the host pays, and only the host needs it for the whole group to get those things on that crawl.

How do I include people who are not drinking?

Design it in rather than apologising for it. Pick venues with proper alcohol-free options rather than one warm bottle of cola, make one round in the middle a soft round for everybody, and score any game on stops reached, check-in order or photos rather than on drinks. Nobody should have to explain why they are not drinking, and nobody should be bought a drink they did not ask for.

Student crawls by city

Real pubs and real published routes, not a list of city names.

LondonManchesterBirminghamLeedsLiverpoolSheffieldNottinghamNewcastle Upon TyneNewcastleBristolGlasgowEdinburghCardiffBelfastDublinGalway