be one of the first

Find your next paddle.

Real routes, not just pins. The launch, the get-out, the portages and the hazards, with the wind, tide and river context for the day you're actually going.

Paddle Routes is brand new. Be one of the first to join the paddlers mapping the UK's canals, rivers and coast.

Download for iOS Find a route on the web →

free on the App Store · or in any browser

on the web

on iOS

contributors

Add the routes you know. Get Pro for free.

Paddle Routes is mapped by the people who paddle it. Publish 3 routes that pass review, like the local canal or the loop you know by heart, and we'll add a month of Pro to your account: live conditions, offline maps, analytics, the lot.

Add a route How the reward works →

every 3 approved routes earns another month · no cap, no expiry

PPete JenkinsFREECONTRIBUTOR

2 OF 3 APPROVED THIS CYCLE

✓Nottingham Canalcanal · 6.8 km · approved 3 Aug

✓Grand Union Canal Paddle Out and Backcanal · 6 km · approved 9 Aug

+Add one more routeunlocks Pro

counts your approved routes all-time1 more → a month of Pro

routes

Know the route before you launch

Move the map, see what's near you, and open a route to the things that actually decide the day: where to launch, where to get out, where to park, and what's in the way.

Distance, estimated time, route type and which craft it suits. Portages, hazards, escape points and step-by-step directions where the contributor recorded them, with their photographs from the water and what they made of it.

Find a route →

The app's route map, with nearby routes listed underneath: name, difficulty, distance and water type.

A route's detail screen: the line on the map, parking and start markers, then distance, estimated time, portages, which craft it suits, and a paddler's review.

A route's parking card: Queen's Road Nottingham Public Car Park, its address, and £5 all day parking. — Parking, with the price
Where to leave the car, the postcode, and what a day costs.

Numbered step-by-step directions for a route, describing which way to turn out of the start and how to portage around the first lock. — Step by step
Directions written by the person who actually paddled it.

A close-up of the route map with a portage drawn as an orange dashed line along the bank, labelled Portage, between the canal and the river. — Portages on the map
Where to get out, carry, and put back in.

conditions

A forecast that knows which way you're going

Wind read against the direction you're actually paddling: headwind, tailwind, crosswind and quartering, section by section, with the return leg worked out separately. So an easy paddle out doesn't become an hour of grinding home.

Tides against your timings, river gauges against the range the route's contributor recorded as runnable, and flood alerts for the stretch you're on. Coverage varies by area and provider, and it's shown on the card.

How conditions work →

DATA SOURCES

Open-Meteo forecastWorldTidesEnvironment Agency gauges & flood alerts

The conditions screen for a route: a score for the day, wind along each section of the route, and live water checks.

⇈

The calmest-looking water is often the most dangerous.

An offshore wind flattens the water and pushes you away from shore. Easy paddling out, much harder coming back. It's the one most forecasts bury, and it's the reason wind is read against your route's direction here.

SOURCE

RNLI lifeboat launch statistics, 2024

conditions in depth

See what the water is doing

Every check on the conditions screen opens in full: what the number is, where it was measured, how recently, and what it doesn't tell you. Live readings, annual classifications and modelled outlooks are kept visibly separate, because they are not the same thing.

Coverage varies by area and provider, and a missing source is shown as missing rather than quietly read as an all-clear.

The conditions screen scrolled down: live checks for water quality, sewage, river level and flood warnings, a week-ahead row, cold-water risk, and current weather. — The day at a glance
Live checks, the week ahead, cold-water context and the best window.

A river level screen: a live Environment Agency gauge reading against its typical range, seven days of measured level, and a modelled outlook shown as a direction rather than a level. — River level
The live gauge against its typical range, with seven days behind it.

A water quality screen: an Environment Agency bathing water classification, where it was sampled, five years of history, and a note that it grades a different body of water. — Water quality
The nearest designated site, its history, and what it does not cover.

A sewage overflow screen: nothing discharging across twenty monitors, mapped against the route, then every monitor listed with its distance and how long it has been clear. — Sewage overflows
Every monitored overflow on the stretch, and how long it has been clear.

A flood warnings screen: none in force across the twenty Environment Agency flood areas covering the route, and what a flood alert, flood warning and severe flood warning each mean. — Flood warnings
What is in force now, and what each tier means for a paddler.

safety

The safety features are free. All of them.

Three tools that take a minute before you launch, and one screen you hope never to open. Paddle Routes helps you prepare and tell people what you are doing. It is not a monitored emergency service.

Live Beacon

from the recording screen

Share a link before you launch and whoever holds it sees your latest reported position and how long ago it updated, in any browser. No account, no app install, and it stops working when the session ends. It needs your phone to have power and signal.