As most of my fellow walkers, I love looking at paper maps to plan our next walk. But, I also find it nice to plot walks on my computer to check distance, ascent or other parameters and being able to play with the different paths to plot a walk that we will enjoy. I also like to find walk recommendations when I am not in the mood to prepare one myself or if we are going to a place we never visited. Additionally, I enjoy recording walks on the ground during our walking adventures.

I have used several walking websites in the past and mainly Viewranger, when it was existing, however with its closure I had to find a new website as I didn’t like its replacement. Around 3 years ago I started to use Visorando walking website. To be more accurate, the English version of Visorando, as I had used in the past the French website. Now that I have a good understanding of this website and their phone application, I thought I will write a review to share with you why I like it.

Visorando was created in 2010 by two cousins Fabien, walking guide, and Arnaud, IT developer, to share their common passions for walking and the outdoors. The company is based in Alsace, East of France, near the Vosges. With more than 30,000 walks published on their website, Visorando is considered the leader for walking website/application in France. They have around 14 full-time staffs and around 16 moderators volunteering from across France and the United-Kingdom. The website is available it French, English and German and on mobile phones via their app.

Visorando is a collaborative website based on the publication of walks that their members have written. Each walk published on their website is unique and has been reviewed and accepted by one of the moderators. Everyone can write a walk and submit it. The process is very simple: an author write a walk and send it for review. Moderators will review the walk, accept it or request modification and then the walk will be available for everyone on the website. It is also possible to just use the website to record personal walk without publishing them, to use it to plot walks or just to follow walks that have already been published. The website offers the possibility to download the GPX file of the walk and a PDF with clear details of the walk. Using the app, you can also read the explanation of the walk and follow the walk on your phone. There is a function that let you know if you are slightly off the path. Additionally, the website offers the possibility to review and comment walks and to attribute a mark.

As mentioned previously, Visorando is a collaborative website based on members that share the same passion of walking. There are three main roles within the Visorando community, which are at high-level:

• Basic user: This is someone who will use Visorando for looking at walks that are already on the website, follow them via the app or GPX, PDF. They might plot their own walks that they will save in their personal space on the website. They might also write comments on the walks they have followed, contribute to discussion on the forum and publish photos for the walks they have done.
• Author: This is someone who will use Visorando as the basic user but who in addition will write walks that will be publish and available for everyone.
• Moderator: This is someone who will use Visorando as the basic user and who might also be an author but it is someone who has decided to help the Visorando community by reviewing and moderating the walks that have been submitted by others authors.

You can access Visorando for free by creating an account on the website or app. You can also download PDF, GPX files, comments on walks, participate in the discussion in the forum and publish walk for free. However, you will have some advertisements. For £21/year you can have the premium subscription with the following features: Topographic maps available on mobile phone even offline (e.g. OS maps, IGN France etc), walking route planner on mobile phone, advanced walking route planner on the desktop, no advertisements, weather forecast, real-time position sharing from mobile phone, advanced search engine, classify walks within personal account, export KML/google Earth and others features.

Overall I have enjoyed using Visorando the past 3 years. Their team is so friendly and responsive that if I have an issue, I just need to send a quick email to them or message in the forum and they will quickly fix it. What I like the most compare to other walking websites is the fact that each walk published on the website/app is unique, which mean that if I open the link to a walk I know it will be different to the next link I open. That save me a lot of frustration and time when compared to other website. I don’t know about you, but personally I hate when I open several links of walks published to realise that they are all the same and that actually 20 people have published exactly the same walk.

I also find the tool to plot walk easy to use, with all the function I need. Regarding the quantity and selection of walks: most of the walk are in France and UK is slowly developing, which means that you can sometimes find some areas in UK that have no walks. However, there are more and more walks published around the world and in particular in UK. Additionally, a lot of walks are currently written in French but it is possible to access walks written in German and English and just download the GPX or follow the map on the app. Also the team is working on the translation of all the walks in the three languages so soon, every walks published will the available in the three languages. The walks available are diverse covering different level, length, ascent, terrains and are perfectly for everyone from beginning and family walks to multi-day and challenging ones.

Would I recommend Visorando website. YES and as I am enjoying using it, since the beginning of this year I am a volunteer moderator for the English website. I am also please to say that the Visorando team is offering to my readers a 10% discount to the Premium membership subscription by using this code NH-K7U25.