How to Use Komoot for Hut to Hut Hiking – 2024 Guide

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TL;DR: The Komoot App is a freemium navigation and GPS tracking app with integrated social features. It shines in comparison to other similar apps with its curated and excellent European hiking collections to include hut to hut hikes, thru hikes and regional forests.

How Does it Help Hikers?

how to use komoot for hiking

The aim of this article is to help you step-by-step on how to use komoot for hiking.

NOTE: this isn’t a sponsored post. I’ve written this info article, because this app is so rad for those of us who like to hike off the beaten path, especially in Europe.

To reduce overwhelm, the Komoot App offers 6 categories of activity, location and highlights to sort trails. Most importantly, the curated “Collections by Komoot” section has well designed long distance trails and thru hikes with very helpful logistical tips and hints

  • Best feature: for European hiking multi day trips. Makes sense as it was developed in Berlin.
  • Most popular for bikes but offers route sharing, route finding, route planning and outdoor community.
  • Functions seamlessly between the web and its iOS and Android apps.

How to Use Komoot for Hiking on the Trail

  • Discover an already planned hike, go under your profile for a “planned tour” or simply start hiking and hit record to track your hike.
  • Even if you follow someone elses tour or deviate from your planned tour, it will give you the option at the end to upload your hike and save it how you completed it at the time.
  • Use the voice navigation or simply follow the red line and arrow. Simply point your phone toward the trail and the little green arrow will show you the way.
  • You can adjust from a previously planned tour if you see a better path. The map will show a dotted line for smaller, more rugged paths. Sometimes I’ve found these to not really be a path, but a place a previous user bushwhacked through the weeds. Other times, it’s a perfectly maintained path.
  • After finishing, you upload it to your account. This takes some time and a good data connection. I lost my first day on the Alta Via 1 in the Dolomites after meticulously tracking it, super bummed.
  • All the photos you’ve taken during the hike will automatically upload for you so you can remember the details and the photos will be marked by the distance from the start of the hike.
  • Share it with friends.

Cool Features of Komoot App

  • Komoot’s value is in the UX, all of the Open Street Maps data is free.
  • Find hikes by mountain huts, high elevation rifugios or hutten for single day hikes, or multi day hut to hut hikes. beyond user comments and photos, they’ve even got the huts contact information on how to book.
  • Import GPX
    • Komoot uses Open Street Maps (in essence the Wikipedia of the digital mapping world).
  • Social
    • Invite Friends
    • Get notifications of friends hikes
    • Experts (lots of contributions) and pioneers (lots of upvotes)
how to use komoot for hiking

Hut to Hut Route Planner Tips

  • Before a trip you can upload waypoints and plan your entire trip ahead of time.
  • There is a map and you can search by place or location and start building your hiking path starting with “A”. It’s simple and intuitive.
  • What’s cool is they give you options to look for “e-bike” charging stations, parks, things for kids, parks, dogs, public toilets, etc. that you can plan your trip around if you want.
  • Alternatively, you can upload a .GPX from other sources such as googlemymaps, maps.me, or outdooractive and copy another already laid down route.
  • you can easily click and drag waypoints around so you can hit up different highlights

Discover Tips (even for epic multi day hikes) on how to Use Komoot for Hiking

  • Pick an activity, hike, run etc.
  • Search by location or “explore worldwide”.
  • Pick a duration and you’ll get hiking collections with descriptive headers.
  • Click on a collection and a template will be shown that you can customize to your liking. Usually the sections end near a village with a bed and breakfast.

Check in the comments on the bottom and often hotel owners will leave their number or bus timetables.

  • Scroll to bottom to the “You might also like” section to get more ideas

Basic Functions of Komoot App

If you want to learn how to use Komoot for hiking check here!

  • Primary function: Find routes, or tours on Discover or Plan a tour on Route Planner
  • Secondary function: Pioneers social function. You can be voted an expert if you can add tours, write tips, add photos and create “highlights” of local cultural or nature sites. Others can then use your highlights to plan their tours if interested. With enough upvotes then you are upgraded to pioneer and it’s not only fun to follow, but if you are in a region you can get really good ideas from consistent hikers.

What you Get

  • List of all your planned hikes and completed hikes
  • Automatic translation from other languages into your own for tips
  • The Map
  • Distance
  • Time
  • Elevation Gain, Elevation Loss
  • Average Speed
  • Highest and lowest elevation points
  • Interactive graph of your speed/elevation/distance
  • You can pause navigation for a lunch break and resume
  • You can have the navigation voice commands to you
  • All photos integrated onto your page and earmarked by the distance you’ve hiked. You can title it and enter links from websites or comments about the trail in the comment section. Others can also comment.
  • Social: you can find others in your contacts and be notified when they hike and offer high fives. or you can mark it private for only you.
  • Recommendations based on your location of completed hikes: Collections and other hikes nearby are coordinated to your published page.

Komoot Activities

how to use komoot for hiking
  • Bikepacking
  • Hiking
  • Biketouring
  • Mountain Biking
  • Road Cycling
  • Running

Collections by Komoot : The Best Feature for Hut to Hut hikers

how to use komoot for hiking
  • Thru hikes, multi day hikes or bikepacking focused.
  • Comments are gold for public transport, trail closures, links to hotels etc.
  • Google search : they’ve put some effort into making their website searchable by google. That means you can have an idea of the place or hike you’re interested in and simply search in google and find their top ranking hikes that are likely well done and less sprawly than the often goofy hikes some users take.
  • Multi-day planner Tutorial

Komoot Pricing

  • Free, but to access offline maps you have to pay
  • One free region offline possible
    • Voice navigation
    • Offline maps
    • Free lifelong map updates
    • Tour export for your GPS device
  • ONE TIME PAYMENT:
    • Purchase Single Region: 3.99
    • Purchase Region bundles: 8.99
    • Purchase the whole world: 29.99
    • If you’ve unlocked the world, you can plan your trip ahead of time and it’s downloaded on your phone and you don’t need mobile service
  • Recurring Worldwide mapping and navigation pack: 59.99 annually (first year 30 euro discount)
    • Everything with world wide plus multi-day planner, sport specific maps, live tracking, Collections, tour weather, premium protection and special premium discounts. In addition, the world package is included in Premium.

Alternatives to Komoot

  • Maps.me

Possibly the most popular hiking navigation app and free. However, it’s got a lot of detail. Consider it like the Samsung vs iphone. The UX is challenging and it’s very detailed. If you want simplicity, komoot is for you. If you really want the best information maps.me is likely what you want.

  • Outdooractive

Outdoor active is quite similar to komoot, however the collections are not as developed. They offer a whitelabel product for many other organizations. Therefore, if you find a cool idea or trail online from a company or tourism board, it’s likely built on the outdooractive platform.

I’ve noticed this with the Rhineland Pfalz government sponsored hiking site. So I simply download the GPS file to my laptop, then upload it to my komoot on my laptop. I simply login to my komoot account through a web browser. Once it’s uploaded to my online account, it’s good to go on my phone’s app.

  • Strava

Similar to both, but much more social. It bills itself as the social network of athletes.

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How to Use Komoot for Hiking

From planning the perfect route to tracking your progress with a GPS mountaineering watch, Komoot is the ultimate companion for hikers looking to conquer the great outdoors.


Author profile: Morgan Fielder is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and passionate hiker who believes in exploring the world on foot with good food. Follow her journey as she shares science-based hiking tips and advocates for sustainable tourism.


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