Our Global Routes Map Just Got the Overhaul Everyone Has Been Asking For

Since 2013, BIKEPACKING.com has been at the forefront of establishing, maintaining, and sharing bikepacking routes across the globe. From day one, we’ve sought to create the most well-researched, inspirational, and thoroughly documented network of off-pavement bicycle routes available by working with a talented team of creators and stewards worldwide. The result is the largest library of bikepacking route guides on the web, including original Bikepacking Collective Routes and many carefully curated tracks contributed by our millions of readers.

• 
• 

Frankly, it’s been showing its age, and we’ve been listening to your feedback about what could be improved. Working with our friends at Ride with GPS, we rebuilt it from the ground up, and we’re beyond excited to unveil a redesigned map with a fresh suite of features that will make it easier than ever to find your ideal route. All 545 routes are still there, spanning 70+ countries and nearly 240,000 kilometers. What’s changed is everything around them. Read on to learn more.

• 
• 

New Terms

We’ve fine-tuned our categorization methodology for the types of routes in our catalog, from one-night trips and month-long adventures to community routes and Bikepacking Collective Routes. You’ll find the new language and several updated terms on our routes page and in the menus at the top of the site. Below is a rundown of those changes:

Route Types

We made many changes to the data structure of our routes, all of which led up to the release of the new map. A few of these changes involve the syntax used to categorize routes. One such designation is “Ideal Bike Type.” Each route is assigned one or two of these, and we made some adjustments to the naming. Here is the updated list of bike types:

• Mountain Bike: Mountain bikes allow riders to access a totally different world of adventure by bike. These routes offer a more rugged experience, featuring more singletrack and technical riding surfaces, with an even greater emphasis on off-road riding. Lightweight packing, low gearing, wide tires, and hardtail or full-suspension bikes are recommended to enjoy these routes to their fullest.
• Gravel Bike: With relatively narrow tires in the 35-55mm range and an efficient riding position, these bikes make it easy to cover plenty of ground while still carrying everything you need for self-sufficiency. These routes often include long stretches of dirt roads, quiet paved byways, and the occasional rough track. They should appeal to riders who value a physical adventure over a technical one.
• All-Terrain Bike (ATB): Designed around the capabilities of flat-bar rigid bikes with wider tires and upright geometry, these routes are mixed-terrain at their core. On these routes, a gravel bike doesn’t provide the comfort or confidence you need, and a mountain bike with suspension may be heavier and more complex than necessary. ATB routes prioritize a variety of terrain, including quiet back roads, mellow singletrack, forgotten doubletrack, and scenic dirt roads that reward curiosity rather than speed.
• Fat Bike: When it comes to bikepacking routes, fat bikes open up a whole new world of possibilities. Large-volume tires make snow, sand, and coastal terrain the perfect playground for multi-day bike camping. Not all the routes in this category require a fat bike, but they are much more enjoyable with one, and some would be impossible to complete in the recommended season without one.

• 
• 

Route Duration

Overnighters are designed to be completed in a single night, though some people choose to extend them to a second night. We also still have Weekend Routes, which would be hard to complete in fewer than two nights out. The rest of our routes see a slight update to their naming conventions and are defined as follows:

• Weeklong Routes (4-10 days): Weeklong Routes are just that: 4-10 day bikepacking vacations that can be slotted neatly into a holiday from work.
• Multi-Week Routes (11-30 days): Multi-Week Routes aren’t the most grandiose in our archive, but they undoubtedly require a time commitment, along with planning, dedication, and an openness to experiencing the highs and lows of long-distance bikepacking.
• Expedition Routes (31+ days): This is the kind of route that usually requires selling (or storing) possessions and quitting a job or taking a sabbatical. Still, many of our Expedition Routes are designed to be ridden in sections, each with its own unique flavor profile.

Previously, these filters were only available within a drop-down at the top of the page. As of today, you can now filter the route map by these new route types!

• 
• 

Our New Map

We unveiled our global routes map in 2014, originally built using a clunky Google Maps interface with very few features—just a collection of pins, created to provide a resource we wanted: a place to find good multi-day, dirt-focused bicycle routes. We were the first organization to publish such a global bikepacking route map with associated digital guides, inspiring readers to connect multiple routes and share routes of their own. Today, our map features nearly 550 curated routes, and it’s always growing. While we’ve always had the functionality to sort our list of guides by route type, location, and general duration, we’ve long been planning and discussing ways to make it easier for you to find the routes that suit your unique needs. Thanks to our partners at Ride with GPS, the wait is over!

• 
• 

Our new map adds 18 new and revised filters to help discover the route of your dreams, meet your time limit, or match your riding style. They are:

• Overall Difficulty
• Climbing Scale
• Technical Rating
• Amount of Singletrack
• Trip Length
• Bike Type
• Singletrack/MTB
• All-Terrain Bike
• Gravel Bike
• Fat Bike
• Route Shape
• Loop
• Out & Back
• Point-to-Point
• Distance
• Elevation Gain
• Surface
• Editor’s Choice
• Bikepacking Collective Routes
• Route Network Hubs

Now, some of our vintage routes do not have every rating yet, but we will be updating those so the filters become even more accurate. You’ll also notice that you can finally see all of our routes on a single map. Previously, we had one map for overnighters and another for everything else. Mixing and matching routes has never been easier.

Our new map incorporates Ride with GPS’s new wildfire, wind, and air quality layers, so you can even pick your routes based on those up-to-date considerations. You can read more about those features here.

All of the maps on our site—both the collection maps and the map on each route—also recently became even easier to use with the addition of a command+scroll zoom feature, which allows you to use your mouse or mousepad to zoom in and out while pressing the command key. Previously, you had to double-click to zoom in or use the “+” button, and you could only zoom out with the “-” key. In addition, the filters above will automatically adjust your map to zoom in on the perfect route when you’ve entered all your preferred parameters. Or you can click on any route and the map will immediately zoom in for you, then zoom right back to your preferred level when you click away. And we’re not done! We still have a few more filters and options to add in the near future, so keep checking back.

The people behind our routes

You’ve likely seen the artist renditions of our Route Architects beneath our world map. These are creators who have designed many of the drool-worthy tracks that established BIKEPACKING.com as the leading source of aspirational bikepacking routes. We couldn’t create leading routes like those in our Bikepacking Collective Route Network without insights and hard work from our Route Architects.

Our core group of Route Architects is made up of passionate, skilled individuals who are largely responsible for the Bikepacking Collective Routes network and other large, captivating routes. Each is experienced in bikepacking route design, active in community advocacy, and adept in route documentation. These are people we have worked with to bring their routes to life, all of whom meet some combination of the qualifications below:

• Created a single, pioneering bucket-list route, unique to BIKEPACKING.com, through an exceptionally challenging or distinctive territory, with top-notch writing, exceptional photography, and a route that is at least a week in length for the average rider.
• Have published three or more routes of outstanding quality on BIKEPACKING.com, defined as:
• A unique corridor
• Excellent attention to narrative and map detail
• Remarkable photography
• At least two routes must be longer than a weekend ride
• Pioneered a route corridor before anyone else, even if it is not unique to our website.
• Active within the last five years (updating, creating, commenting, stewarding).
• Active steward of the route and/or community advocacy.

This sliding scale helps us acknowledge long-time stalwarts in our community while providing a guide for recognizing new talent. Each year, our team will review our route creators and induct new Route Architects who have met some or all of the requirements above. They will be the first people we reach out to when we have scouting and route-development opportunities or need feedback on a corridor, and they will have additional opportunities to shape the future of routes on our website.

• 
• 

We are pleased to welcome 20 Route Architects to our class of 2026! We are honored to partner with such a diverse group of individuals from around the globe to knit the world together by bike. You can read more about each one and their contributions to our website by clicking on their picture to visit their author page. That brings up another new addition: you can now filter the posts on each author page, with the option of viewing only their list of routes. We hope to welcome several new Route Architects to our site each year, so stay tuned and submit your exceptional routes today.

How You Can Get Involved

We couldn’t do this work without the help of our Bikepacking Collective members. Being a member isn’t just about getting The Bikepacking Journal in your mailbox, having access to more than 100+ exclusive industry discounts, or getting to use expanded website features. It’s also a commitment to developing and maintaining long-distance, dirt-focused routes across the globe, from your backyard to transcontinental corridors.

Many organizations create one-off routes or cover adventures undertaken by others. There are websites and apps that suggest where to ride based on popularity. But very few devote the extensive time and energy required to venture into the unknown, chart original routes, take high-quality photographs, ensure accurate documentation, and constantly update route guides in real time. It is a labor of love for us here at BIKEPACKING.com and for the community of contributors we support. So, thank you to all of our Bikepacking Collective members for sharing in our vision of curating this unrivaled network of dirt-first routes.

While we hope that all of our readers will join us members—or better yet, become a Builder-level member—we also want to provide a way for individuals to contribute throughout the year. To that end, we’re unveiling an additional way to support route creation, documentation, and curation: a one-time donation option to contribute to our Bikepacking Collective Routes Fund. All donations collected via this one-time option will go directly to supporting routes on our website through:

• Route scouting and documentation
• Community building and advocacy
• Paying contributors for unique, exclusive routes
• Route guide development and updates
• Ongoing website maintenance and improvement
• Graphic design services to support contributors

Existing members and non-members alike can make contributions via this option. Note that only Bikepacking Collective members have access to exclusive benefits such as industry discounts, our online buy/sell/trade gear marketplace, and The Bikepacking Journal. However you can help, our small team is sincerely grateful for your support.

Ready to explore the new map? Check it out here. And if you have any questions or feedback as you do so, please let us know in the Conversation below!