Made by someone who walks here.

Tom Spencer, a designer who lives on the South Downs Way and whose work is making complex information legible. The site started as a proof of concept about one trail and grew into a plan for the others. It is run in his own time, with no staff, no investors and no sponsorship yet.

There is no shortage of places to find a walk. There is a shortage of places that plan the logistics a guidebook leaves out — where you can actually sleep, what to book first, how to get to the start on a Friday and home on the Sunday after — and say plainly how good the information is. That is the whole idea.

The planner is free, with no account and no wall. We earn a small commission when a walker books through a link marked Partner, and we say so beside every one. How that works.

The rule the site is built to, word for word from its working agreement:

Never invent trail facts — distances, ascent, transport services, opening times, prices, accommodation availability or booking lead times. If a fact is missing, say so; never fill the gap with a plausible number.

• Distances are measured, not typed. Every distance on the site is computed from the route’s geometry at build time. Where our line differs from a trail body’s published figure, the guide shows ours and the notes say by how much.
• Every checked fact carries the date it was checked. Station services, bus routes and, when the research is done, beds. If there is no date, it has not been checked, and the page says “not yet checked” rather than nothing.
• Recommendations are never ranked by commission. What we suggest, we would suggest with no link at all. Partner links are added to recommendations; recommendations are not made for links.
• The writing is not neutral, and says when it is first-hand. Where a chapter says the pub is open or the cliff edge is undercut, someone has been there. Where it draws on published sources, it sticks to what they agree on.

Each trail’s line is the OpenStreetMap route relation for it, taken whole, stitched into walking order and checked for breaks. The South Downs Way’s line follows the walkers’ clifftop route over the Seven Sisters and measures 163 kilometres against the National Trail’s hundred miles; the official figure is a round number and the line is not.

Heights on the South Downs Way come from the Environment Agency’s LIDAR survey of England — a laser measurement of the ground at one-metre resolution, accurate to about fifteen centimetres — resampled to twelve metres along a corridor either side of the path. A summit reads within a few metres of its trig point. Total climb is a sum of small differences and any sampling loses some, so the figure given is a floor; guidebooks quote more.

Every dataset, its licence and the credit it requires is listed on the data sources page.

A transport link on the site names the station or stop, how far it is from the trail, what runs from it, and the date someone checked. Seasonal services are flagged as seasonal. Timetables change; the date is there so you know how stale a line might be, and you should check before you travel.

It is not a navigation app. There is no turn-by-turn guidance and no offline map. Plan here, then take an OS map and a compass, or a phone with something proper on it.

It is not a substitute for judgement. Cliff edges on the south coast are undercut and collapse without warning; conditions change; nothing on the site replaces your own reading of the day in front of you. The terms say this at greater length.

Spotted something wrong — a closed path, a bus that no longer runs, a bed that has gone? Tell us and we will fix it and date the fix. Not yet set: a contact address for the site