AllTrails provides access to trail information in the palm of your hand.
Several years ago, some friends and I took a trip to the Great Smokey Mountains. We knew that we wanted to include hiking as a part of our activities while we were there, but none of us were familiar enough with the area to know which trails would be good for us. Each of us on the trip were at a different fitness level and experience level when it came to hiking and it was hard to simply go off of the description from the park. Luckily, I stumbled across the website AllTrails.com. AllTrails.com allows users to explore over 40,000 trails and user reviews of those trails, share trails and photos with friends and shows you exactly what to expect from a trail you might be interested in taking. My friends and I used this website to determine the best trail for our excursion into the National Park.
If we had taken that trip today, we would also be able to utilize AllTrails app for iOS. This app is very impressive to me because it not only includes all the same information you would find on AllTrails.com, but it also adds in the GPS component to the trek.
When you open the app, AllTrails request permission to use location services. I highly recommend that you allow that with this app so that you can find your way should you become lost. Using your current location as a default, AllTrails then compiles a list of trails that are near your location. You can select one of these trails to explore, or if you are say, planning a trip to the Great Smokey Mountains, you can use the filter function to type in a specific location.
The filter is actually very sophisticated. Besides selecting a location, you can select activities, user rating, difficulty, what time of year it’s open, whether dogs or horses are allowed and if the trail is kid and/or wheelchair friendly.
Once your filters are in place, the app will compile a list based off of your requests. The list description will show you a thumbnail of the trail, the name of the trail, icons that indicate who is allowed on the trail, the length of the trail, user rating and difficulty. Once you have selected your trail and open the information page for it, you can view the map, tracks, select it as a favorite, save it, and read reviews.
The features I like the most is the ability to check-in to the trailhead and track your movements with the integration of the phone’s GPS.
If you are an avid hiker or just want to have this information at a glance, I highly recommend downloading AllTrails for iOS. It’s available for free in the App Store.
