Free GPS routes

Introduction

Own a GPS? Want to use it to go places?

Me too. Having bought my GPS I felt sure I'd be able to find walking routes on the Internet that I could load into the GPS. I was disappointed to find none at all for the UK unless I was prepared to pay £1.50 each - or pay an annual membership fee.
To be fair, I did eventually find some free routes and you will find links to those sites on the "free routes" page.

On this website you will find free GPS routes and instructions to help you use them and to record your own routes to share.

Is this website just for walkers? No, I'm happy to put up sections for Mountain Biking, Geocacheing, climbers and potholers to find the best way to get to their crags/caves, anyone for whom shared routes might be valuable - even motorists.

Having looked around the Internet and the technology available I concluded that there are several reasons why my search for free routes was initially so disappointing:

• Different GPS receivers and mapping products use different and incompatible file formats for waypoints and routes.
• Transferring routes between the GPS and a PC might be a bit of a challenge for a non-technical user.
• There is a shortage of websites offering free routes in any format and even fewer in a universally shareable format.
• And, well, let's face it, there may be a large community of hill walkers in the UK but how many of them will own a GPS receiver? Maybe there's a bit of a "chicken and egg" situation here, if there were more GPS routes freely available perhaps more walkers would buy a GPS receiver in order to use the routes.

There is a difficulty, there's just one of me doing it in my spare time. I need your help.

First of all, in order to build a database of routes around the UK I need your contributions.
If you know a good route, capture it on your GPS convert to .GPX format if you can and email it to me for inclusion on the website. If you don't know how to convert it to GPX, this site has instructions. If you still can't convert to .GPX send it anyway and I'll see if I can.

If you get some value from using the site, please contribute. I don't want your money, I want your help. Please contribute technical information or GPS routes.