(Image credit: Future)

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

(Image credit: Future)

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.