About this directory

HikingTrailDirectory maps hiking routes and explains them properly. Right now that is 9.7k routes across 15 countries, covering 139k kilometres of walking.

Every route on the site has a real, measured line on the map. We do not publish a trail until we have its geometry, because a distance you cannot verify is worse than no distance at all. Elevation gain, high and low points and the profile chart are sampled from open terrain data along that line, not copied from a description.

Difficulty is computed, not guessed. It combines distance with total ascent into a single effort index, then adjusts for gradient. That means an eight kilometre walk with 900 metres of climbing is correctly rated harder than a flat fifteen, which is the mistake most directories make.

Photography comes from Wikimedia Commons, always with the photographer and licence shown. Route data comes from OpenStreetMap contributors under the Open Database Licence. Both are credited on every page that uses them.

What we will not do: invent facts to fill a page, publish a route we cannot map, or bury the content under advertising. If a field is unknown, the page says so.