As any seasoned explorer knows, the best advice that leads to the most exciting and extraordinary experiences and discoveries rarely originates from guide books or magazine articles – it comes from fellow travellers. And the same is true with cycling, walking and running adventures.
In 2023, however, instead of being cascaded by ‘word of mouth’, priceless information about the best routes to ride, run or ramble is shared through interconnected online networks, such as the komoot community, a 30-million strong collective of cyclists and outdoor enthusiasts spread across the planet.
This fantastic fellowship of like-minded explorers and tourers has an ever-expanding box of tools to improve how they can access, experience and pass on route knowledge. The latest advance comes via komoot’s new Recommended Tours features, which marries real feet/tyres-on-ground activity with some very smart technology to take information uploaded by millions of hikers and bikers, and use their experiences and highlights to generate suggested Tours all around the world.
Find the perfect adventure for you
The Tour search features are available on the komoot app (iOS, Android) and web platform. So, whether you’re exploring your own backyard or straying far from home, seeking out adventures well beyond your immediate horizon, komoot’s newly updated Tour search tool is a font of information about what awaits you on and around the tracks and trails.
The new features are best accessed via a game-changing, easy to use, map-based interface, which helps you to discover the most exciting adventures in your local area, or cast your eyes much further afield for ideas and inspiration all across the UK, Europe and well beyond. By simply clicking a particular spot anywhere on the map, you will get a range of suggested routes that begin at that exact point.
This fantastic fellowship of like-minded explorers and tourers has an ever-expanding box of tools to improve how they can access, experience and pass on route knowledge
The app supplies hard information about the distance, descent and ascent of your planned foray, but additional layers of functionality also offer so much more than that. Komoot’s Tour overviews will tell you the type of terrain you’re going to encounter, suggest some Highlights to check out along the way and even give you the latest on the weather conditions you’re likely to experience.
Better still, you can filter your Tour search according to your interests and preferences by selecting the kind of terrain you want to explore, the distance you’d like to travel, the amount of elevation you’re happy to take on, how hard the route is and whether you’d like to do a point-to-point or a circular adventure.
This is how to explore smart, to go wild while having confidence that you’re not just fumbling and trundling around in the dark, blundering through an assault course of unknowns. You can even focus on routes that pass by something of natural, historical or cultural interest, from waterfalls and woodlands to castles, cathedrals, ruins and battle sites.
The feature is also accessible via the komoot website. For example, if you go to the ‘Discover’ page and select mountain biking from the dropdown menu on the left, and then punch Quantock Hills into the search panel, you will get over 50 Tour recommendations in the Quantock Hills AONB, all generated by a clever algorithm using multiple activities completed by other people on komoot in the area.
Start komooting
To follow a route that has piqued your interest, you can navigate within the komoot apps, sync komoot with your preferred GPS device or wearable, or download the relevant GPX file.
And this flow of info is far from one-way traffic. Whenever you upload details and images of your latest adventure from your watch, smartphone or GPS unit https://www.komoot.com/devices, it can be added to the ever-expanding wealth of content that populates the komoot Discover Feed, expanding the resource for everyone who taps into it.
Outdoor enthusiasts love nothing more than a bespoke adventure, and with these new and improved komoot functions it’s never been easier to access and plan a personalised tour. Open the map, pick a spot and peruse the suggested Tours, then customise the route to suit your preferences.
Join the komoot community and see where your discoveries take you.
https://www.komoot.com/discover/tours?max_distance=20000&map=true
