2026 guide
Best Training Apps for Hiking and Long Walking Events
Every hiking app is a map. Almost none of them prepare your legs for six days at altitude, a 100 km walking event or a Camino with a pack. Here is what is actually out there for the training half.
Hiking is the best-served sport in the world for navigation and the worst for training. AllTrails, Komoot and Gaia GPS are excellent at showing you the route; none of them build you a plan. Meanwhile the events themselves are enormous: multi-day treks, Kilimanjaro and Everest Base Camp, the Camino, Alpine hut-to-hut weeks, the Nijmegen and Japanese 100 km marches with thousands of entrants each year.
This guide covers the training side only, for two kinds of goal: a trek where the hard part is consecutive days and altitude, and a walking event where the hard part is distance in one go. We build IntervalCoach, so we say so plainly, and we are equally plain about where a specialist programme beats a general coach. Figures are accurate as of mid-2026; always check current pricing on the vendor's own site.
Two questions that narrow it down fast
Are you carrying a pack, or covering distance?
A trek with 12 kg on your back and 1,200 m of climbing a day is a strength and durability problem: loaded carries, step-ups, descending legs. A 50 or 100 km walking event is an endurance problem: time on feet, feeding, and whether your feet and hips last. Mountain Tactical Institute and Uphill Athlete are built for the first. A general endurance coach handles the second better, because it is ordinary aerobic progression.
Is walking your whole plan, or part of a wider week?
If you are training for one trek and nothing else, a fixed specialist programme is simple and effective. If you also run, ride or lift, the question becomes whether anything counts your hiking as load. Most apps treat a five-hour hike as an activity to log, not as training that leaves you tired. That is the gap IntervalCoach fills: walking and hiking are real sports here with their own load.
The training options
The places that actually prescribe work, rather than draw a line on a map.
Hard, specific, unglamorous programming for backpacking and mountaineering: loaded carries, step-ups and leg durability built around pack weight and vert. The best answer for a big trek with a heavy pack. Fixed programmes, no adaptation to your week or your recovery.
Visit siteThe mountain-athlete institution: trek and mountaineering plans, books and human coaching, delivered through TrainingPeaks. Teaches you the why better than anyone. The day-to-day adjusting is yours or your coach's.
Visit siteFree in the watch, and hikes are tracked properly, with elevation and time on feet. But the coaching plans are running and cycling: there is no hiking or walking plan to follow.
Full comparisonWhere most trek plans are delivered, including Uphill Athlete's. Excellent for following a coach-written programme and seeing your load; it does not decide today's session for you. Garmin-owned.
Full comparisonThe navigation apps, and what they are not
These are the apps everyone means by "hiking app". They are very good, and none of them is a coach. Use one for the route, something else for the training.
The biggest trail database, with reviews, conditions and offline maps. Route discovery and navigation only: no plan, no progression, no load.
Visit siteThe best route planner in Europe, with turn-by-turn voice navigation and superb surface detail. Again: a map, not a coach.
Visit siteTopographic layers and offline maps for remote ground, the pick for big international treks. Navigation only.
Visit siteWhere IntervalCoach fits for walkers and hikers
This is the app we build. Walking and hiking are first-class sports here, not activities that quietly disappear: a long day in the mountains counts as the load it is, your week is built around the hours you actually have, and the plan works back from your event date through base, build, peak and taper. Put a walking event or a trek in as your goal and the weeks aim at it. Before each session we read 60+ recovery signals from whatever you wear and adjust when the data calls for it, which matters more in the last month before a trek than in any other block. Strength sits in the same plan rather than in a second app.
We are deliberately plain about the sessions themselves: a walk or a hike is prescribed as time on feet at an easy, conversational effort, with a heart-rate zone if you wear a watch. No intervals, because walking intervals are not a thing. If your event is a loaded mountain ascent and the limiter is your legs under a pack, a specialist programme from Mountain Tactical Institute or Uphill Athlete is the better tool, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise.
Quick picks
- You are training for a long walking event, and you also run, ride or liftIntervalCoach
- You are carrying a heavy pack up a big mountainMountain Tactical Institute
- You want a coach-written plan and the theory behind itUphill Athlete
- You work with a human coachTrainingPeaks
- You want the route, not the trainingAllTrails or Komoot
Frequently asked questions
Is there a training app for hiking?
Very few. AllTrails, Komoot and Gaia GPS are navigation apps, not coaches. For training, Mountain Tactical Institute and Uphill Athlete sell structured trek and mountaineering programmes, and IntervalCoach plans walking and hiking as real sports inside your normal week.
How do I train for a 100 km walking event?
Time on feet is the whole game: progressively longer walks, back-to-back days near the end, and practising your feeding and footwear. IntervalCoach builds that progression back from the event date and counts every hike toward your load, so the taper is real.
How should I train for Kilimanjaro or Everest Base Camp?
Consecutive days of climbing with a pack, plus leg strength and descending. That is exactly what Mountain Tactical Institute and Uphill Athlete programme for, and where a specialist beats a general endurance coach. Use them for the plan; anything that tracks your recovery is a useful second opinion on whether you are absorbing it.
Does hiking count as training?
It should. A five-hour hike leaves you tired in a way your next run will notice. Most apps log it and move on; IntervalCoach treats walking and hiking as sports with their own load, so the rest of the week is planned around them.
Can an app plan a multi-day trek?
It can plan the preparation. Nothing here writes your itinerary; that is what AllTrails, Komoot and Gaia GPS are for. IntervalCoach can hold the trek as your goal event so the weeks before it build and taper toward the first day.
Do I need a heart-rate monitor to train for a walk?
No, but it helps keep the easy days easy. Walking sessions are prescribed as time on feet at a conversational effort, with a heart-rate zone if you wear a watch. Recovery-based adjustment does need a wearable that records sleep and HRV.
Other guides
What do athletes say about IntervalCoach?
IntervalCoach is rated 4.8 out of 5 from 179 ratings across the App Store and Google Play. Below are reviews from both stores, plus athletes we have featured on the blog.
4.8from 179 ratings across the App Store and Google Play“I've been using IntervalCoach daily for more than six months. IC uses AI to provide adaptive training plans, detailed workouts, readiness, load management, etc. All of this is packaged in an attractive and intuitive UI. IC has helped me develop a long term plan (and stick to that plan!) for future A-races. […] This app provides the best combo of functionality, speed of development and affordability.”
“The App is made for athletes. Very good overview of all helpful details, when you start in a new training day (sleep, HRV, mood, etc. is analyzed and your training plan adapted if needed e.g. if HRV is low or you had a bad sleep). […] For me it is the best App on the market so far!”
“That's really impressive, tackling all of these things so quickly! Good luck finding that level of support from a big company like Google or Strava.”
“awesome app. work in progress, but the developer is incredibly fast at introducing new features and fixing bugs. there are a lot of options out there with AI trainers, but I'll be sticking to this one due to the amazing features and customer support.”
Every week we feature one athlete's training. Read the spotlights
Train for the walk, not just the route
If you are building toward a trek or a long walking event and want every hour on your feet to count toward one plan, IntervalCoach is free to start, with a 14-day trial of the daily-adaptation features.
Works with Garmin, Coros, Apple Watch, Polar and Strava data via Intervals.icu. Cancel anytime.