komoot: get the places right, then put them in order

You are planning a weekend walk from a station, past a water stop and a viewpoint. Knowing where those places are does not settle which one to visit first. Moving the water stop on a map may not change its position in the visiting order.

komoot offers tools for planning and viewing outdoor routes, with navigation on mobile. This article focuses on planning on the web: add places, adjust their locations and order, then save a route to return to. A waypoint is a location the planned route passes through. The map answers where; the list answers in what order.

Suppose your walk starts at a station, visits a water stop and a viewpoint, and ends at a park exit. Start by planning in a signed-in komoot account on the web.

1. Choose a sport, start and finish

Open Routes → + Plan new, choose a sport such as hiking in the sidebar, and set the station as the start and the park exit as the finish. The sport affects the paths used. Route preferences guide the choices but do not guarantee avoiding a particular surface entirely. Open the web planner

2. Add places to visit

Select a place on the map and choose Add to Route; komoot chooses where to insert it. A waypoint added manually through the list goes before the finish. After adding the water stop and viewpoint, check their actual order. Being included does not mean they are already in the order you intended. Add waypoints

3. Separate location changes from order changes

If the water stop is in the wrong place on the map, drag that point. This does not change its order in the route. To visit it before the viewpoint, expand the full waypoint list in the sidebar and drag the water stop above the viewpoint. Use Undo in the toolbar after a mistake, then check the route again. Map dragging, list ordering and undo

Changing “Station → Viewpoint → Water stop → Exit” to “Station → Water stop → Viewpoint → Exit” changes the visiting order. It does not relocate the viewpoint.

4. Review the route and save it

Use the sidebar overview and elevation profile below the map to check distance, estimated time, surfaces and route notices. The overview updates after edits. An absence of notices does not mean every section has been verified. When ready, click Save route and find it again under Saved routes. Review and save

For navigation on your phone, select the route under Profile → Saved routes and tap Navigate. The region containing the start must be unlocked; offline use also requires downloading the route or maps beforehand. Navigation requirements The result of planning is a route whose locations and order you have checked. Conditions on the ground still matter when you travel.

Different views express different relationships

A map helps you see which path is near the water stop. A list helps you see whether it comes before or after the viewpoint. With both views referring to the same waypoints, users can choose an operation that fits the question. A spatial editing tool need not make one view do everything. Users do need to recognize the same object across views.

Leave room for personal reasons after automatic placement

Automatic insertion reduces the work of making an initial plan. People also have reasons such as getting water first or meeting someone along the way. Explicit ordering gives those reasons a place in the plan. The tradeoff is that users must check the automatic result. Showing the order makes a mismatch between that result and their intentions visible.

Make experimentation reversible and its effects visible

Undo avoids rebuilding the route after a mistaken drag. An updated overview helps users inspect the effect of an edit. These solve different problems: one allows recovery, the other makes the result understandable. Other editing tools can likewise place recovery and feedback within the same working process.