u/sukalaminkia

My partner and I hiked an 8-day version of the Peaks of the Balkans, starting and finishing in Theth. We skipped the two Kosovo stages after Dobërdol and took an alternative route straight over a pass to Babino Polje instead. Day 1 over the Valbona Pass is the busy one (understandably!). The descent is absolutely gorgeous. But honestly, every stage had its charm. For example, we also loved the panoramic views in the Vusanje stage. We took the Prosllopit Pass variant on day 2 which is 100% worth it if the weather is good, though the descent was harder than we expected and we had to take our packs off and hand them down at one point. The only bad weather we had was on day 3 and 4. We arrived in Doberdol while it was raining and the misty clouds added mystery to the place. It ended up being our favourite place we stayed. Play is nice for a rest day! Some great affordable restaurants and the lake is very nice for a swim.

Practical stuff: we stayed in guesthouses every night, booked over Whatsapp a few weeks ahead. Dinner and breakfast are usually included and served to everyone at a set time, which made for good evenings with the other hikers. Border permits we arranged through Zbulo, took five days, and nobody asked to see them once. We took a bus from Tirana airport to Shkoder and then an early morning transfer to Theth. Same way back. The trail was definitely busier than expected. It’s not really a remote or undiscovered hike anymore but it’s absolutely worth it! Also culturally very interesting and it’s a historically rich region. Let me know if you have any questions! Would love to talk about the trip and help others plan theirs

Hi everyone, in my spare time I’ve been working on a free hobby project for planning the Camino de Santiago (and other EU trails). There are six Caminos on there now, each with the route on an interactive map, the places to stay along it, and the alternates you can choose between.

The routes
- Camino Francés:, Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Santiago and on to Fisterra. 13 alternates, including Valcarlos instead of the Route Napoléon, Samos instead of San Xil, the Camino Duro at Pradela, and the Dragonte crossing. Two examples to start from: 33 days from Saint-Jean, or 5 days from Sarria.
- Camino del Norte: Irún to Santiago. 16 alternates, mostly the coastal and inland splits through Cantabria and Asturias, plus the Villaviciosa link across to the Primitivo. This is the one route without an example itinerary yet, so it starts empty.
- Via Podiensis: Le Puy-en-Velay to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. 15 alternates including the Célé valley and the Rocamadour detour. 32-day example.
- Camino Portugués: Lisbon to Santiago, so the whole route rather than just the Porto half. The Coastal Camino and the Variante Espiritual are both drawn in. 12-day example from Porto.
- Camino Primitivo: Oviedo to Santiago. Pola de Allande and the Puerto del Palo sit alongside the main line over Hospitales, and there's the Naranco churches climb on the way out of Oviedo. 14-day example.
- Camino Inglés: Ferrol to Santiago, including the line from A Coruña. 6-day example.

It's built around where you sleep rather than around fixed stages. Close to 9,000 places to stay are marked within a couple of kilometres of these routes, with contact details, photos and ratings. You pick where a day ends and the walk to it is worked out for you: distance, ascent, and an estimated time.

You can mark what you've booked, keep notes per day, check the weather forecast, and share the plan with whoever you're walking with so you can edit it together. The line follows the main route unless you pick an alternate, and dropping a waypoint anywhere routes that day through it.

Navigation
When your itinerary is ready you can either export each day as a GPX file and use whatever you like to navigate it or use the Traileasy mobile app. You can download the route and your plan and use it without signal. I built the navigation component based on my own experience of hiking long-distance trails and includes some features I think are nice (efficient battery modes, progress throughout the day at a glance, notification when going off route etc).

What I'd like feedback on
- General ease of use: is it clear for you how to calculate a route for a day, change accommodations and switch between variants?
- Missing features: is there any information or features that you’d like to see?
- Any thoughts that come into your mind when you open it: is it too visually overwhelming, not intuitive enough, or something else! Any thing is welcome

Disclaimer: it’s free in its entirety and I don’t make any profit from it but there is a donation button inside that helps cover costs. This is fully optional. I mostly build it because I really enjoy it and love hiking, and felt that something like this was missing.

Hi everyone! I’ve been working on a personal project for planning and navigating the Kungsleden. It lets you build your trip stage by stage using an interactive map of the trail with live availability data for the STF huts.  You can choose where to start and finish each day and it automatically calculates your route, distance and estimated walking time. It contains the full classic route as well as the alternate northern terminus in Nikkaluokta.

Once you’ve built your itinerary, you can use it in the mobile app and follow your planned route with offline navigation. It supports multiple battery modes and informs you about the distance left during your hike.

You can personalise your plan with notes and detours, share it with your hiking partners, and work on the itinerary together.  You can also plan and manage the items you’re bringing through the gear list functionality. 

Both the mobile app and the planner are free and I make nothing from it, but I love working on it! It still has a lot of room for improvement so if you find something missing or incorrect, please let me know and I’ll fix it.

Hi everyone! A while back I made a post regarding Traileasy, a free multi-day hiking planner for the Tour du Mont Blanc. The planner shows the TMB trail, its variants and most refuges/campsites along the trail on a map and helps you to build your itinerary stage-by-stage.

​

I've now built a companion mobile app for navigating your itinerary on the trail, and I'm looking for testers starting the TMB in the next few weeks. The app shows your itineraries and allows you to navigate your exact planned route. It has a detailed map of the area of the TMB and during each day shows the route to follow and the progress you’ve made in terms of distance and elevation. It also notifies you when you have taken a wrong turn.

​

How it works:

- Plan your itinerary through either the website or the mobile app. If you’ve already done so, you can just log in and your itinerary will show in the overview.

- Open your itinerary and download it for (offline) navigation

- When you’re out on the trail, choose the corresponding day and start navigating.

​

The mobile app is completely free (just like the planner) and will be available on both iOS and Android devices. Right now, I’m looking for people who are starting the TMB in the next few weeks and would like to test it.

​

If you are interested in this, please leave a comment below or send me a private message and I will send you an invite link to download the application! I’m collecting feedback and making sure it functions well before doing a full public release. It is still in the beta phase so please have a second GPS/map as a backup.

​

​

Hi everybody! I've been working on a tool to make it easier to plan for the AV1 and AV2. For each, it shows an interactive map with the trail and all accommodations and resupply points along it (rifugios and campsites with contact details, images and reviews). Both maps also show multiple variants with a short description and how they compare in terms of difficulty to the main trail.

You can select your start- and end accommodation for each day and it automatically calculates the exact route you have to walk, including distance and estimated time. You can take notes, share your itinerary and invite others to collaborate. Planning for these hikes can be a bit overwhelming so the purpose of this is to give you a central overview of your planned route with a clear insight into each stage.

You can start planning by selecting one of the example itineraries which you can modify or begin from scratch with an empty itinerary. Your planned route follows the main trail by default but you can select variants and add custom waypoints to detour from the main trail. When you have planned your route, you can export each stage as a GPX.

The Alta Via 1 features a 9-day example itinerary you can find here: https://app.traileasy.com/c/alta-via-1/9-day-itinerary or you can start from scratch here

The Alta Via 2 has a 13-day example itinerary you can find here: https://app.traileasy.com/c/alta-via-2/13-day-itinerary or start from scratch here

It is completely free and you don't need an account to try it. It is far from perfect but I hope it might help some of you plan their hike. Thanks and please let me know if you have any feedback!