A self-guided walk is not a PDF with a map on the last page. It is a product: a route someone can follow without you, on a phone, in a city they do not know. Four things decide whether it works, and the file is only the last of them.
1. The theme is the route
A walk with no theme is a list of buildings. A walk with a theme is an argument: Liberty in one neighbourhood, the industrial city before the war, the architects who worked on one street in ten years.
Choose the theme before the stops, because the theme decides which stops are in and which are out. "The best of the city" is not a theme: it is a search for one, and the walk shows it. A theme a visitor can say in one sentence is a walk a visitor can recommend.
2. The stops: verified, not invented
Every stop needs four things: a name, a date, a position, and a source. If one of the four is missing, the stop is not ready.
- The name and the date come from a document, not from a blog.
- The position comes from a map, not from memory: the coordinates are what makes the walk work offline.
- The source is what lets a visitor trust the stop, and what lets you correct it later.
- The photograph needs its credit, or it cannot be used.
The temptation is to add a stop because it is on the way. Do not: a walk is judged by its weakest stop.
3. The order: walk it, do not draw it
A route that looks good on a screen can be wrong on the ground: a closed passage, a hill, a gate that opens at ten. The order of the stops is decided on foot, with the phone in hand, at the hour the visitor will walk.
Two rules survive every route: start where people arrive, and end where they can sit down. A walk that begins at a metro exit and ends at a cafe is a walk people finish.
4. The file: GPX, offline, phone
The GPX file is the standard for a route: it carries the track and the stops, it opens in the apps people already have, and it works without a connection once it is downloaded.
What the file must contain:
- the track, with the walking order and the direction;
- the stops, with the names as they appear on the page;
- the distance and the time, stated honestly, including the pauses;
- a note on accessibility where it matters: steps, cobbles, slopes.
A file without the stops is a line on a map. A file with the stops is the walk.
5. Publishing it, and selling it
A walk that exists only on your laptop does not exist. It needs a page that answers three questions: what it is, how long it takes, and how to get it.
The archive holds 98 itineraries (figures measured on 22 October 2026), and the route with the GPX file is part of the paid plans. Operator PRO, at 99 dollars a year, gives the operator page, the itinerary and the route with the file .
The difference between a free PDF and a sold walk is not the file: it is the page, the price and the person who answers when something is wrong.
Publish your route with the Operator PRO plan, 99 dollars a year: /pro-operatori/
