Via Helvetica is a new web-based hiking planner. Designed and developed by Philippe De Pol, this app offers a simple and intuitive interface for planning hiking routes across Switzerland. The app is available in German, French, Italian, and English and is free to use without an account.
The app uses official Swiss basemaps and geodata. It allows drafting hiking routes along the network of hiking trails (and other paths). You can adjust routes manually or skip adherence to trails entirely using the “magnet” button. Route direction can be flipped and routes can be turned into a circular hike1 at the press of a button.
The app shows metrics for distance, ascent, and descent as well as an estimate for the duration of the hike. Further, Via Helvetica can show the elevation profile of the route. There is a GPX2 file import and export. Routes can also easily be brought into the swisstopo3 mobile app via a QR code.
To me, this app stands out for its simplicity: With its clean user interface – a handful of buttons, five layers – it serves a very clear use-case. Reminds me a lot (in a positive sense) of Brian Timoney’s classic “Why map portals don’t work” series, especially parts II – Paralysis of choice, III – The tyranny of “requirements”, and IV – An iconography of confusion.
Via Helvetica is open-source under the MIT license and its developer is actively seeking feedback.
Footnotes
At first, I thought the circular hike function tries to find a route that keeps the length of paths travelled twice small (i.e., truly “opening the loop” like the button’s hover text suggests). But during further tests, I got identical “to” and “from” paths in the majority of cases.↩︎
GPS Exchange Format, an open XML-based file format for exchanging waypoints, tracks, and routes between GPS devices and applications.↩︎
The Federal Office of Topography of Switzerland.↩︎