Back to Support / Building a hike
Starting from a place, the six steps of the builder, and what belongs in each.
From My Hikes, press New hike and choose where the hike is: the country (United States is already picked, and it's also at the top of the list), then a state or province and a city if you like. Each field narrows as you type. If the city isn't on the list, type its name and press Enter, or just move on to the next field, and it's kept as you wrote it. That works even when a listed city starts the same way: the first choice, Use and your text, is the one Enter picks. To pick a listed city instead, click it or reach it with the arrow keys.
Press Create & start building and the hike is named after its place, for example "Savannah Historic Hike". You can change the name later, on the Marketing step. That creates a draft that only you can see. Nothing you do is public until you publish. The builder opens on Waypoints, ready for your first stop.
Each account can start up to 10 new hikes an hour. The New hike dialog says so, warns you when you're about to start the last one, and once you've reached the limit it tells you how long until you can start another.
Already have the hike written down somewhere else? Press Import a hike instead, and bring it in as a file. See Importing a hike.
The builder's steps run along the top, in the order most people work:
You can move between steps freely, in any order. A small check appears on a step once its part of the hike looks done. The checks show your progress; they never stop you from moving on. A step with nothing to work on yet says what to do first, with a button that takes you there.
To get back into a hike you maintain, press Edit beside it in My Hikes, or open its own page and press Edit in the bar across the top (shown to you and nobody else). The builder opens on the step you were last on, even on another device.
Where the hike is: country, state or province, and city, the same as when you created it. While the name is still the one the place gave it, changing the place renames the hike to match. Once you've written your own name, it stays.
Every hike is labeled with the language it's written in, which is set to the language you're using the site in when you create the hike. If it needs changing, contact us.
Tap the map to place your stops, in walking order. The map opens on the place you picked, and each new stop is joined to the one before it by a straight line. A hike needs at least three stops to publish. You can also set a trail start, where people begin, and a trail end, where a one-way walk finishes, each marked as parking, a transit stop, or both. See The route, stops and legs.
Shape the walking path between your stops so it follows the real way to walk. Distance, walking time and difficulty aren't typed in anywhere: they're worked out from the path (see Time and difficulty). The step also shows the hike's total time, which adds the suggested stop times you choose in the next step.
The writing. Each stop opens with its name, its suggested stop time and its story, then its photos. A photo can be a new upload or one you've uploaded before, on this hike or another. A quiz question and planning info (hours, fees, notes and restrooms) are there for the stops that need them. See Writing stops and quiz questions.
How the hike presents itself. At the top is the hero, the large photo shown at the top of the hike's page and on its card. It can be any photo on the hike: one you added to a stop, or a photo you add here just for the hike, uploaded new or picked from the photos you've uploaded before. Below it are the hike's name, the summary shown on hike cards, the history introduction and the planning notes. The summary is optional: until you write one, cards and link previews show a short automatic line naming the place and the number of stops. See Photos and licensing for uploading photos, using a photo again and choosing a hero.
If you delete a draft to start over, the photos you uploaded to it are not lost. They stay under Your photos whenever you add a photo, ready for the new hike.
Use Preview in the header at any step to see the hike as visitors will, in a new tab.
Two lists. Needed to publish is the short list a hike must meet before it can go live: three stops and a walking path. Hike completeness is a score for everything else that makes a hike better to follow, such as a hero photo, a story at every stop, photos at half of them, and a quiz question. Nothing on it is required; each item has a Go to link to the step where you add it. See Publishing and versions.
Any link you add to the history, planning or a stop's story opens in a new tab when a visitor clicks it, so following it never takes them off the hike page.
The builder saves as you work. There is no save button. A status indicator tells you when a change has been stored. If a save can't go through right away, the indicator tells you it's waiting and keeps trying on its own for about a minute. You don't need to redo anything, and it's safest to leave the page open until it says your change is saved. If it still can't save after that, it stops trying, and a strip under the top bar says your latest changes couldn't be saved. They're still on the page: press Retry in that strip to send them again once your connection is back. If the indicator instead says a save couldn't go through and says why, such as a field that's too long, fix that first and the next change saves.
If you're signed out while the builder is open (after a long break, say), a strip under the top bar says so. Your changes are still on the page: press Sign in, which opens a new tab, sign in there, then come back and press Retry.
If you follow a link out of the builder while a change still hasn't saved, the builder first tries once more to save it. If that doesn't work, it asks whether to leave anyway, which loses the change, or stay on the page and press Retry.
When you come back to the builder with your browser's Back button, it loads your hike again, so it always shows what was last saved.