Pouring over the maps in preparation for this weekends Buttermere meet got me thinking.
Where is the best source of downloading routes for use with memory map?

I've found a couple of sites that charge £1.50 - £2 per route which isn't too bad but as I'm still limited to public transport I'd like to be able to see a bit more info before I pay up to ensure I can actually *get* to the route once it's downloaded.

Does anyone use any of these type of sites or do you all have your own routes compiled after decades worth of experience.

Can't you just have a look at the map, decide where you want to go, draw out a route for yourself using MM and send that to your GPS?

That's what I do anyway!

thats what I've been doing with tracklogs, looking at the paper maps and the elecronic one and then making up some routes to transfer across to my GPS

I did a one off £15 subscription to Walkingworld and downloaded all 2000+ routes they had at the time and saved them to folders on my PC. I didn't feel it very economical to then renew my subscription as there's not that many maps added. It works out as good value if you just do it the once.

Most of the time I do my own anyway, but it's handy to have those 2000+ routes if I'm short of ideas.

If I was more confident with my skills then yes that'd be fine.
So far whenever I did that, I ended up getting stuck half way up a hill or misjudging how long it was going to take to do a route.

Lately my theory has been that I follow a few "pre done" routes - so far I've been doing selected ones out of Trail [booohisss] - and compare what they think the effort/navigation skills are with how I find it.
Once I'm happy with interpretting a map and relating it to "real life" then I'd start making up my own routes, but I liked having the safety net while I get used to this outdoor malarky.

most pre-planned routes unfortunately assume you have a car. as you use public transport (well done!) you have to approach things about face by finding out about about public transport first. this can give you fabulous linear walks rather than going round in circles. this, of course, doesn't mean that shouldn't do circular ones.

however, following pre-planned routes is valuable for the experience you describe. you must always have a map with you and then, again experience, you will get an idea of what the ground is likely to be like.

i buy walk guide books as these give me an idea of where to go as these walks usually take in something that's interesting. i use these as a base with tracklogs to tailor distance (for after work walks), change the route in places to accomodate public transport and for general ideas.
frequently, walks start off with one route and when out think, what's that over there, and go take a look.

at first, always plan short because it's easier to add a bit on the end if you feel like it rather than suddenly realising it's getting dark and you still have an hour and a half to go. knowing where you are when it's dark can be a bit scarey until you get used to it and not knowing where you are when it's dark is no fun at all and is to be avoided at all costs (altough at times like that a gps unit can pay for itself but only used as a last resort).

be conservative with naismiths rule in mm. i find that 3-4km per hour to be a comfortable average walking rate - to that i add an hour and a half for food breaks, scenery, navel gazing and watching wildlife. a further half hour is added for the where the hell am i moments aka navigating. this gives a bit of leeway for making sure the bus isn't missed (especially if it's two hours to the next one and the knock on train effect).

plan yourself some easy routes (with nice clear boundaries like major roads) near home just to go out and navigate with the map to gain more confidence.

i assume you plot the trail routes into mm. print the map and a scribble copy of the map and write down on it the bits you were ok with and the bits you weren't. then study the map more and get a feel for what it is telling you.

not much help for this weekend i'm afraid though!

There are quite a few routes with GPX files on my website http://www.geohikes.co.uk

All completely free.

Can be imported to Memory Map (that's how they were created) or uploaded to a GPS.