TrailWise provides an interface to Google Maps, which is a great way to see all the tracks in an area.

Unregistered users can use this facility, but only a limited part of the data will be displayed, just the basic geography & TRO info really. The size of the area you can view is greatly reduced too.

Logged in users get to see more features. You can get to the facilty by clicking a hotlink in a selected tracks detail pages, or by using the 'Search' features to look around a given grid point.

The tracks are colour coded to indicate DMS or LoS status; clicking a track will pop up an info box, containing summary information as used in TrailWise text pages. Some features like TROs and obstructions, are also highlighted. In all cases, clickable hotlinks are provided to the TrailWise text pages to see the full associated detail.

You can pan and zoom the map; this won't automatically change the tracks currently shown unless you use the 'Search for Tracks ...' button. That re-fetches TrailWise lanes around the new centre point of the screen, and up to 10km around depending how far in or out the map is zoomed. If you're examining a single track, you can bring up 'Associated' tracks - those that join or have some status in common with it.

Google Maps doesn't currently provide Ordnance Survey mapping as background (too expensive?), but we have provided tools to enable quick cross-references. You can click anywhere on the Google Map to read the OS grid ref (appears below the map), and also can bring that exact location up on the 'Multimaps' website in OS maps view (using link below map).

Also, you can turn on OS Gridlines on the Google Map that match your paper Landranger maps. Sometimes, these will look skew because OS grid is aligned slightly different to Mercator as used by Google!

We can't guarantee Google Maps will work on all web browsers, but we have tested a fair selection. You must have JavaScript enabled in your browser to use maps. (You don't need Java enabled, though.) Unfortunately, the need for Javascript will stop the maps page working on many 3G mobile phones.

A word of caution; searching a 20km area can yield 200-300 tracks in some areas! The little javascript has to work hard to draw all those, and on slower machines that can take a few minutes.

Popup Blocking The Maps window appears as a popup from the main TrailWise website, and can be inhibited by popup blocking software, e.g. some versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox browser's built-in popup blocker are enabled by default. You can safely allow popups for our website in order to see the maps, we do not have any pop-up advertising.

Firefox 2 users: A default browser setting in Firefox prevents auto switching between windows in a smooth flow. You can change this by going to tools / options / content , you'll have Enable JavaScript ticked, but next to that is an Advanced button to use for more options; there tick Raise or lower windows.

See also our Troubleshooting FAQ.