Two young children walking along a woodland path surrounded by greenery.

We’re making something awesome together. Will you join us?

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by

Dan Raven-Ellison, Good Ways CEO
in

I am so pleased you are reading this. I would love for you to be part of the Good Ways journey.

We’re starting small, but we’ve plans to build something truly awesome and we’re delighted that you are here.

This is just the first of many updates. Most posts will be short, keeping you in the loop and sharing opportunities to influence Good Ways as we grow the project.

This effort has been in the making for some time.

Five years go we started Slow Ways, an incredibly successful grassroots project to develop a national walking network. Thanks to so many people joining in, Slow Way has over 150,000km of routes that connect all of Britain’s towns and cities. Thanks to that effort it’s possible to walk from Inverness in Scotland to Falmouth in Cornwall entirely on routes rated 4 or 5 stars.

Group of women from Bristol Steppin Sisters gathered on a leafy path, looking at a phone together during a walk
Six Bristol Steppin Sisters out for a group walk exploring a Slow Ways route. Photo by Katie Mcgoran.

After five years of learning and a giant crowdfunding campaign backed by over 2,000 people, it’s time for a bigger, better and radically more ambitious project.

We’ve set ourselves the mission to make it easier for everyone to share and enjoy the best walking, wheeling, running, riding, paddling, cycling and swimming routes

We’re going to do that by enabling very large numbers of people and organisations to share routes and collaborate with each other – locally and nationally.

Diagram showing a single ‘Slow Ways’ path branching into many future opportunities after ‘Good Ways’ begins
The Slow Ways project will continue as part of Good Ways, but Good Ways will enable people and groups from across the UK to share their best local routes too.

There are lots of confident people who won’t think this is needed.

But if you’ve ever wanted to know good ways to go – for kids, knees, wheelchairs, kingfishers, benches, great views, wild swimming spots, having some time with friends, avoiding getting your feet wet, avoiding traffic, without too much map reading or to see shooting stars – we hear you.

A person swimming in a calm river with dense trees along the bank and sunlight reflecting on the water.
Woman swimming in the River Lune surrounded by dense trees. Photo by Liam Grant.

Whoever and wherever you are, whether you like short, long, linear, circular, flat, hilly, simple or challenging routes – we want it to be as easy as possible for you, your family, friends and community to find, follow and share the best routes for you.

But we can’t make Good Ways good for you without you.

We’re entirely dependent on people-power to:

  1. Make sure the Good Ways app is good enough for you and your friends
  2. Find, share, rate and enjoy the routes
  3. Fund the project, building the app to share routes and make then easy to follow

We’re a small nonprofit Community Interest Company. We’ll not match Strava, Komoot, AllTrails or OS Maps for staffing or investment – but with time, support and collaboration we think we can do a better job for millions of people whose needs are not being met.

An adult riding a mobility scooter along a tree-lined path near residential buildings.
An adult riding a mobility scooter along a tree-lined path near residential buildings. Photo by Freek Wolsink via Pexels.

When we’re ready we’ll put a call-out for people, groups and charities to help find and share the best local routes across the UK and Ireland so more people can use and enjoy them.

Before then, we’d love your help to make Good Ways successful for you and your community by joining in as a Founding Member.

As well as supporting the project, you’ll get a bunch of benefits – including the ability to read all future updates.

It’s in these updates that we’ll keep you’ll find out what we’re working on and get opportunities to test, influence and shape the future of Good Ways.

In our next post (What would you like Good Ways to do?) for Founder Members we’re sharing some of our plans and inviting you to share your thoughts and ideas.

What are your hopes for Good Ways? Let us know by commenting below.

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