Technologies for determining a user's location include a mobile computing device (100) to determine, based on sensed inertial characteristics of the device, a walking gait of a user. The walking gait is one of a first gait indicative of the user holding the device to the user's side or a second gait indicative of the user swinging the device along the user's side. The device further detects that the user has taken a physical step based on the inertial characteristics and the determined walking gait of the user, and determines a raw directional heading of the device indicative of a direction of the physical step. The device determines an estimated location of the user based on the determined raw directional heading, an estimated step length, and the user's previous location.