My perfect fitness app is one that doesn’t track fitness. I don’t need metrics on how many times I breathed in a race, how many times I swerved to avoid bad drivers when cycling or how many times I sneeze nightly. I need something that motivates me, not creepily watches me while I sleep – and since I started using AllTrails I’ve found my match.
AllTrails is a path-finding app. You use it to search for routes, ranging from short runs around a park to massive hikes through the desert, all sourced from other adventurers. The journeys are plotted on a map, so you can see what’s around you; you can even follow them if your route doesn’t take you too far off the grid that the internet cuts out. However I prefer using the app solely for research; I don’t want to be staring at my phone when I’m in nature.
AllTrails offers three subscription tiers: the free one, Plus which has a few useful extra features like offline maps and better search functionality (for $35.99 / £35.99 / around AU$56 per year), and Peak ($79.99 / £79.99 / around AU$125 per year) which lets you create your own routes on the app or modify existing ones. I’ve only ever used the free tier.
I was introduced to AllTrails earlier in the year, and since starting, I’ve found it to be one of my go-to apps for when I’m abroad, and even for fitness. If one of your new year’s resolutions is to get more outdoorsy, it’s the app I’d recommend.
Charting a route to AllTrails
I first used AllTrails at the beginning of the year while travelling Australia, when my travelling companion and I were disagreeing about which day hike to do in the Macdonnell Range. I wanted to do Mount Zeil, partly because Google told me it was the highest peak in the Territory, and partly because I’d seen it on a drive and said “that one”. I always stand by my impulse decisions.
My friend talked me down: to make it to the top and back before the 40-degree weather set in, we’d need to leave at about the same hour that our current bar was due to close. Instead he pulled out his phone and showed me AllTrails. It offered us loads of other options in the area, and we quickly filtered it by our feasible walking time, what we wanted to see on the route and how close it was from Alice where we were staying.
I’m usually the kind of person who pours scorn on those who offset decision making to apps, but we used AllTrails’ photos and testimonies from other hikers to guide our decision.
Next thing I know, we’ve picked a different hike; we got to leave at a much more social hour, do a hike which was feasible in the time before the 11am sun curfew, and got amazing views. Exactly what we needed, and all from a phone app. I’m usually the kind of person who pours scorn on those who offset decision making to apps, but we used AllTrails’ photos and testimonies from other hikers to guide our decision. I didn’t feel like I was relying on some algorithm to dictate my holiday.
Later in the year I was in Salzburg; drinking beer, eating chocolates and testing a smartphone, and I was absolutely captivated by the mountain that towers over the city. The Untersberg, smiling in the early-morning sun and watching through the evening mist. As soon as I saw it, I wanted to climb it.
However, I was in Austria on a romantic weekend with my girlfriend: scaling a massif wasn’t on the agenda. But I could still use AllTrails to research the hike, with its routes much more informative and captivating than what I gleaned from Google Maps or guidebooks.
And I did use AllTrails after all; my girlfriend and I took a shorter walk up a hill in the middle of the city that I wouldn’t have known was so easily scalable without the app. We took a nice jaunt up a medium incline, got some incredible views and felt like we’d earned a return to the beer hall I’d fallen in love with.
The AllTrails convert
The 3 most important AllTrails filters
1. Attractions
Why are you adventuring, if it’s not to see something amazing? I use the Attractions filter first to limit routes by what I want: a beach trek, river walk, railway path or so on.
2. Highest point
Another important consideration: how much elevation are you willing to gain? This is just as important for hitting heights, as for avoiding them if you’re not up to a climb.
3. Activity
Not all trails are equal, or fun. If you don’t limit your search by what trip you’re on. You might find yourself going for a ‘peaceful’ hike along a road biking track, or cycling somewhere totally inappropriate.
Thanks to Australia and Austria (an unintentional combo), I’m an AllTrails convert – and I’ve used it on other trips and when I’m at home.
I really like using the app to find destinations or areas to visit, that guidebooks or websites don’t mention. If I see a hotspot of pins on the map, I know that’s an area to see in a city or landscape, and if it’s off the beaten track that’s even better. It’s how I found a garden walkway in Paris and a mountain scramble in Gwynedd that I never would’ve found from other sources.
Another thing I’ve been using AllTrails for is to discover new running routes. After finishing my first marathon at the tail end of 2024, I’ve been struggling to find great motivators to keep doing long-distance runs, but AllTrails has helped me add a bit of novelty into the mix.
I’ve been able to find new routes and tracks around my part of London, allowing me to explore the South East better, and also followed brand-new routes. As runners will know, repeating the same run again and again gets stale fast.
Unlike the unhealthy obsession that many well-known fitness apps can foster, my use of AllTrails felt healthy. It wasn’t making me want to get perfect scores on arbitrary metrics, go on really long runs to win social kudos, or strap some weighty manacle onto my wrist at night just to learn that said tracker is stopping me sleeping.
Instead, its offerings inspired in me a sense of wanderlust, gently nudging me out the door with a carrot rather than a stick. If you want to be more outdoorsy or healthy in 2026 then heed my advice: get rid of all your other ‘fitness’ apps and just use AllTrails.
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tom.bedford@hotmail.co.uk (Tom Bedford)
