Site stuff > Tips on searching
Tips on searching
Find a Walk
The main 'Find a Walk' search tool can be found on the homepage of the site. It is worth trying various methods of searching using the tool to work out which gives you the most meaningful results.
The top set of drop-down menus enables you to narrow down your search to particular grades and lengths of walk, as well as walks with a particular feature. Use with care as you may find they narrow down your search too much. The search radius may be worth setting to a lower distance if you are getting lots of results which you want to sort (perhaps by walk length) on the following page.
The Location tabs give you different methods for setting the centre point of your search. Clicking on the map is not terribly accurate (as it is a very small map of the British Isles) but you may find it works, especially if you then view the walks on the map on the results page. Better options to get a precise location are by choosing a Place or entering a Postcode or Grid Reference. The postcode needs to be a full UK postcode. For the Place search enter the name of the place and confirm from the list that comes up.
Once you have done one of these searches you can re-order the list on the results page, to show walks in order of length or grade. Click to 'Show these walks on a map' to see them on Googe Maps. To see more walks on the map change the number of walks shown per page, using the drop-down menu on the right.
ID Search
This is a quick way to go straight to a walk if you know the ID number for it.
Search for word or phrase
This search is fine if you are looking for walks with a particular theme, such as 'pilgrimage' or 'hill forts'. Note that it will look for the exact phrase, so you will get a different result if you enter 'hill-fort', for instance. If you are looking for walks in a particular place you are better off using the Place search in the Find a Walk tool, as the 'word or phrase' search will find any walk in which the place is even mentioned, and the results won't be in order of proximity to the place.
Other ways of searching
If you want to search for walks on a more detailed map there are ways of doing on various 3rd party applications. Have a look at the article about searching on OS maps.
There is also a useful set of pages created by John Thorn for finding walks near to railway stations. Go to his station search pages. However if you know the station you are travelling to you can find walks near it with the Place search in the Find a Walk tool.