Circular trails

Circular trails are the ideal for most outings. You park once and you come back to where you came from.

But creating the perfect circular can take time, particularly if you want to transfer it to an electronic device.

Life’s complicated enough, so this 1 minute movie shows you how just 1 minute of preparation,a SplashMap of the Surrey Hills and some string can lead to a great day’s adventure!

But are we better with GPS reliant apps?

Strava

Strava, with its reliance upon GPS, artificially straightens the bends, misses out dense woodland, and errs on the side of making you look EPPPPICCCC; meaning you end up with this.

Strava North Downs & Surrey Hills

Esplorio

More realistically, SplashMaps award winners Esplorio tell a much more realistic and less frantic story which you can find here;

https://esplor.io/david34/a-splashmaps-day-in-the-north-downs-and-surrey-hills

The app cleverly links your day to the points where you took photos and videos.  Quietly tracking you in the background is makes a great recod of what it was actually like out there.

Esplorio makes a great record of your day out on the circular

More accurate than computerised?

So is string and a pen more accurate than computerised stuff?  In this case yes!  But the really big benefit of the string on a SplashMap method is the planning is ludicrously easy.

And in conclusion, keep your battery life for those shots and videos with a bit left over for emergencies.  Don’t go wasting your energy on planning with a GPS; they’re fun on the trail, but there are easier ways to plan.