Surveying the path

GPS receivers are becoming an increasingly popular walking accessory, and work in a similar way to satellite navigation in cars. They are a useful back-up to a map in showing your precise location, distance and speed travelled, and what direction to go to reach the next point on a pre-plotted route, or to retrace your steps. More advanced models have larger screens, which can display all this against a backdrop of Ordnance Survey maps.

As the Coast Path is generally very easy to follow and well waymarked, the need for a gps unit is far less than it is for mountain walking.

At the bottom of each short walk page is a button to download a GPS file for the walk. Clicking on this will give you the option to ‘Open’ or ‘Save’ the file and you should choose to ‘Save’ it. The files are in a GPX, (GPS eXchange) format because this can be read by most different models and makes of GPS receiver, and opened by most mapping software, including Google Earth (Plus version only), Memory Map, Anquet Maps and Tracklogs. For details of how to do this for your GPS or mapping software, please refer to its manual. If your GPS doesn’t use GPX files, there are many programs such as GPS Utility that will convert it.

If you are planning to walk a longer section of the path, you can download sections of the path in gpx format in a similar way by clicking on the relevant section on the map below.

This data is supplied in good faith, and it is up to the user to exercise discretion and caution when using it. To ensure that these downloads will work on basic gps units, the number of waypoints (turning points) on each route has been reduced to a maximum of 500 (typically about 10 per mile), Between each waypoint is a connecting straight line indicating the shortest route 'a bird would fly' between the waypoints which misses out many small twists and turns of the path.  Each of the waypoints is located on the path, but the connecting line may veer off by up to 20 metres and so it is NOT SAFE OR POSSIBLE TO PRECISELY FOLLOW THE GPS LINE ON THE GROUND. 

To ensure that these downloads are as useful as possible we would appreciate feedback, or reports of any problems in using it. Our contact details are at the bottom of the page.

Path Sections

1. Minehead to Barnstaple
2. Barnstaple to Bude
3. Bude to Padstow
4. Padstow to St Ives
5. St Ives to Penzance
6. Penzance to Falmouth
7. Falmouth to Fowey
8. Fowey to Plymouth
9. Plymouth to Brixham
10. Brixham to Starcross
11. Exmouth to Weymouth
12. Weymouth to Poole Harbour
13. Dorset Inland route