Welcome! Chances are you’ve found your way to this page from Plan My Walk, where you’ve likely been looking for more frequently asked questions. Below, we list a whole lot more, that we hope will help you. If you can’t find your answer here, please contact us.
Yes! It might feel like there’s a lot to learn, and in many respects there is, but we’ve got heaps of helpful resources to support you. We recommend: The best way to develop your skills is to get out there and practice. Pick an easy trip that’s suited to your fitness, the weather forecast and your time available, make a plan using Plan My Walk, and get out there! What to pack depends primarily on how long you’re going, who’s going with you, and what time of the year (or what season) you’re going. We cover the key information here. If you’re planning on anything up to a day walk or hike, we recommend you use this helpful list to guide you. Remember, even on short walks or day trips, there’s some essentials you don’t want to leave without, this includes a rain jacket, hat, gloves, communication device, head torch and at least 1litre water plus food. If you’re planning on an overnight or multi-day tramp or hike, you’ll need to pack a bit more to ensure you’re good to go. We recommend you use the helpful list we linked to above, plus check out this video. You’ll want to include a sleeping bag, a tent or bivvy bag and a sleeping mat (depending on your accommodation). Not only will you need more food, but you’ll want some spare clothing, a reliable communication device in case of an emergency and a first aid kit. And don’t forget, Plan My Walk includes a Gear section, which covers all of the recommended items you’ll need depending on the duration of the walk you select. Yes, we do! You can find a list of skills here, these include navigation, trip planning, weather, communications, river safety, emergencies and survival, first aid and much more. Each of the specific skills pages includes essential information, resources and videos. If you want to watch helpful videos, we recommend you start on our video page, this provides a summary of essential video content, or you can check out or full video library on YouTube. New Zealand has a range of very high-quality training providers, depending on where you live you may have multiple choices. We’ve compiled a list of training and education providers for you on our website. Yes, you can. All notifications are automatically ‘on’, but you can customise these in the ‘Profile and Settings' section. We recommend you leave notifications on to ensure you don’t miss any important messages or trip notifications. No not directly, they can’t access your trip plans or personal details without authorisation from NZ Mountain Safety Council (MSC) administrators. In a real-life search and rescue situation, if requested by emergency services, MSC can release your trip plan details as per our privacy policy here. Your trusted contact, and others the plan has been shared with, can share the trip plan with rescue agencies by sending them the unique ‘View Plan’ link they receive in their email account from noreply@planmywalk.nz When you create a trip plan, make sure you add contact details for the people who will be joining you. They will be notified when you publish and share your trip plan. Provided they create a user account with the email address the notification was sent to, they will be able to see the trip plan under ‘My Walks’ in their app or via the website. If they already have a Plan My Walk account, ensure that the email address you put down as their contact email address is the same as the one they used to create their account. This is so the system can identify the correct person. If you’ve entered the wrong one, delete that saved contact and create a new one with the correct email address. Only the trip plan creator can edit the plan. If you’ve been added to a trip plan and want/need changes, please ask the plan creator to update it. When you are added to a trip plan, you’ll receive an email to the address the trip creator entered. If you haven’t received this email after a couple of minutes, get the trip creator to check that they’ve entered the correct email address. Remember, this email address needs to be the same one that you used to create your account in Plan My Walk. We are aware that there are some issues with being able to see these aspects when viewing a trip created by someone else and will work to fix this in future app updates. If you have this issue, start by viewing the trip plan page, then click on the track name which is listed under the Trip Planner’s name. This will give you further information about the track as well as Weather, Gear and Alerts. This is likely to be because you have selected dates that are too far in the future for a current weather forecast. For tracks that use MetService regional forecasts, this is 10 days out. In areas where your selected track uses a MetService mountain forecast this is 5-6 days out. No, we don’t track individual users’ locations, however if you have mobile reception, your location will show on the map view. We suggest you use the filter option within Plan My Walk, when searching for a track, as this will allow you to see/find tracks that allow dogs.