Wanderfreund – an app and guide for thru-hiking in Germany

Part 1: Thru-hiking in Germany is great

If there’s one stereotype about Germans that holds true, it is that they love to hike (or “Wander”, in German). As such, there are a huge number of long-distance trails that range from about 100 km (62 mi) to over 500 km (310 mi) that are well built, well marked, and fun. Discovering these trails has been one of the most exciting things about our move to Germany, and to date we have hiked 1,400 km along them (see our “German Hikes” page).

Part 2: We couldn’t find good apps for thru-hiking in Germany, so we made one!

Right after we started hiking the German long trails, we realized that there were no good apps for navigating them. Therefore, we teamed up with another 2018 PCT finisher (Jonas ‘Parmesan’ Traut, a real German) and set out to make an app for this purpose. After over a year of coding on nights/weekends and data collecting on all of our vacation days, we released our app, “Wanderfreund“, this fall. Making an app has been a fun and fulfilling process, and ultimately we are proud to have created an outstanding app (in our opinion) for thru-hiking in Germany.

Part 3: Our app

What is missing from all of the other German hiking apps is the integration of waypoint information along a trail with a hikers real location on that trail. There are plenty of apps and maps that show a hikers position on a map, but hikers need to know where they can find the next water source, how far ahead to lodging/camping, where they can expect to encounter a city large enough to resupply, etc. We had a lot of fun working with our partner Parmesan to decide what features are the most important for hikers and how to create a user-friendly layout. (This post isn’t supposed to be an ad, so we won’t list everything our app can do here, but feel free to head over to the Wanderfreund website or Google Play Store to read more feature details. iPhone version coming soon.) Also, since good waypoint information is what makes our app unique, we personally hiked each of the trails the app currently includes. Hiking, data collecting, and photographing, followed by data processing to get all of this information into Wanderfreund, was a huge and rewarding part of the app-development process.

Part 4: Our business

Along with creating our app and collecting a ton of data, we incorporated a business here in Germany. Navigating the incorporation process without speaking perfect German was challenging but fun. We were required to hire a notary to draw up our founding documents, and it was surprising to learn that the roles (and costs) of a notary in Germany are very different from a notary in the USA. Here in Germany, a notary is a fancy lawyer, while in the USA it is just a person who is legally authorized to witness document signatures and check IDs. The company name “Wanderfreund”, which translates to “Hiking Friend”, was rejected for being too general. So, we re-named the company “Wanderfreund-Trails” and were approved. Now we are an official “UG”, which is like a LLC in the USA.

Part 5: Thank you

Thank you to all of our friends and family for their support. Flunker designed our amazing logo. Peter helped answer our Java questions. Dennis helped us credit all of our open source packages. Jen was our lead on-trail tester to verify that the app worked and suggested improvements. And to the many others who listened to us rambling about the app and encouraged us to see it through!

Video preview of Wanderfreund

Rather than continue rambling on about Wanderfreund, we’ll close this post by leaving you with a video that shows what the app it is good for, and hopefully provides a sense of the fun we’ve had making it! In addition to TikTok, you can find Wanderfreund on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter too.