Frequently asked questions

HikeLoad is a free hike planning tool that brings together three modules in one place:

• Hikes — plan your route day by day, add accommodations, upload GPX files and manage a to-do checklist.
• Gear — build your gear inventory by category, track weights per item and see a live weight breakdown.
• Food — create food lists with per-item weight and calorie data, then link them to specific days of your hike.

Yes, a free account is required to create and manage your own hikes, gear and food lists. You can browse hikes that other users have made public without an account.

Yes — HikeLoad is completely free. There are no paid tiers or hidden costs.

Go to Hikes in the top menu and click New hike. Give it a name, choose a distance unit (km or miles) and optionally pick a country. You can add a description and adjust the settings at any time from the hike detail page.

Open your hike and scroll to the bottom of the page. Use the Add day form to fill in the date, distance, start and end point, expected walking time and any notes. You can add as many days as your route requires.

Yes. Each day card has a pencil (edit) icon in the top-right corner. Clicking it expands an inline edit form. After saving, the page scrolls back to that day automatically.

By default the total distance is calculated automatically by summing the distance of all your days. If you prefer to enter a fixed total distance manually, you can do so from the hike description / settings section — this will override the calculated value.

When adding or editing a day you can fill in accommodation details: type (Campsite or Hotel), name, check-in and check-out times, a booking link and a website. You can also mark it as paid. Accommodations can be deleted individually using the delete button inside the day card.

Yes. Each day has a GPX section where you can upload one or more GPX or XML files (up to 10 MB each). Uploaded files are linked to that specific day and can be downloaded or deleted individually.

The to-do checklist on the right side of the hike detail page lets you track preparation tasks — things like booking accommodation, buying gear or sorting permits. Each item can be checked off and deleted. The hero shows your completion progress (e.g. 2/5 todos done).

Go to Gear in the top menu. Use the Add item form to enter a name, category (e.g. Clothing, Shelter, Navigation) and weight in grams. Items are grouped by category in the list below.

The doughnut chart in the Gear hero shows the weight distribution across your gear categories. The number in the centre is the total weight of all your items. This gives you a quick visual overview of where most of your pack weight is coming from.

Open a hike detail page and scroll to the Gear section on the right. Use the dropdown to select individual items from your inventory and click Add. You can remove items from a hike at any time without deleting them from your inventory.

Yes. The Pack weight pill in the hike hero shows the combined weight of all attached gear items plus all food items across all days. It updates automatically when you add or remove items.

A food list is a reusable collection of food items with per-item weights and calories. You create food lists in the Food section, then link them to specific days of a hike. This means you can reuse the same "Day 1 food pack" across multiple hikes without re-entering everything.

Open a hike detail page and expand the day you want to add food to. In the Food sub-panel, select a food list from the dropdown and click Link. Each day can have one food list linked at a time.

Yes. When a food list is linked to a day, the day card shows the total weight and total calories for that day's food. The hike detail page also shows the combined food weight across all days in the pack weight calculation.

Open the hike detail page and click the Share button in the top-right corner of the hero. This opens the share modal where you can generate a unique, unguessable link. Copy the link and send it to anyone — they can view the hike without needing an account.

A visitor with a share link can see all days, distances, accommodations (type and name only — not whether it is paid), GPX file names and food information. They cannot edit anything, download GPX files, or access your gear or food pages. Todo lists are also hidden.

The Public toggle on the hike detail page makes your hike visible in the Shared hikes section on the HikeLoad homepage. When you turn it on, a share link is automatically generated if you do not already have one. Anyone visiting the homepage can then discover and view your hike.

Turning the toggle off removes the hike from the homepage. Revoking the share link via the Share modal also turns off the public toggle at the same time.

Click the Share button (shown in green when active) to open the share modal, then click Revoke link. The link immediately stops working and the hike is also removed from the public homepage. A new link with a different URL will be generated the next time you enable sharing.