How we handle your data

What we collect

Basic visit data. Like any website, our hosting infrastructure logs standard request data — IP address, browser/user-agent, requested page — to serve pages and keep the site secure and running.

No analytics product of our own. Waymark loads no analytics product of its own. Cloudflare, which hosts the site, produces aggregate traffic counts from the request data above: totals of how often a page was served, not profiles of who read it, and no cookies involved. Most pages, except the trip planner and shared trip pages, also load a script from emrldtp.com, the server of our affiliate network Travelpayouts. It confirms to them that the site is ours, and to tell which page it is on it sends them the content of the page you are reading (the site's public content, as everyone sees it) and, like any server your browser contacts, your IP address. It may store identifiers of its own in your browser. It does not run on trip pages, so it does not see the trips you open, and your trip keys sit in cookies it cannot read. Travelpayouts' privacy policy applies (travelpayouts.com).

Your location, only if you ask for routes near you. The “Near me” button on the route list and on the map asks your browser for your approximate location, and your browser asks you before it shares anything. The location is used on that page to sort routes by distance and to centre the map, and it is gone when you leave the page: it is never sent to us or to anyone else, never stored in your browser, and never put in a link. As with any map or list, what then appears on screen loads as usual: map tiles for the area shown come from CARTO, and photos of the routes shown come from this site, but none of those requests contains your coordinates. If you say no, or never tap the button, nothing about your location is used, and you can still browse by country.

Comments, only if you choose to comment. Signing in to leave a comment stores your name, email address, and the profile picture Google gives us, plus the comment text and standard session data (IP address, user agent) tied to that sign-in. Comments use Google sign-in and nothing else. We never post, comment, or sign in on your behalf anywhere else.

Walk reports, only if you add one. When you say you walked a route, we store the month and year you walked it, the optional one-line note you write, the route it is about, and the signed-in account it came from (the same Google sign-in as comments). Your first name, the month and your note are shown publicly on that route. Your surname, email address and profile picture are not. Deleting a report removes it from the page.

Shared trips, only if you make or join one. When you save a planned route as a shared trip (yourself or from a chat with an AI assistant), we store in our database the trip’s title, dates and routes, the name you choose to show, the comments, votes and suggested alternative routes members add, the questions the group decides together with the options and answers members give, and a short log of what changed and when. Anyone holding the trip link can see all of it, so write nothing there you would not share with the people on the trip. To stop abuse we limit how many actions can be made per hour, and for that we keep a hashed identifier derived from your network address (never the address itself) only for the clock hour in which you acted, and delete it after that hour. The trip’s creator can delete the whole trip at any time, which deletes its routes, questions, comments, votes, answers and log with it; any member can delete a comment they wrote, or leave the trip, which deletes their name, votes, answers, comments and log entries (routes, questions and options they proposed stay on the trip without their name until the trip is deleted); and a trip is deleted automatically one year after its last activity. If you plan in ChatGPT, Claude or a similar assistant, that conversation is between you and the assistant’s provider, under its privacy policy: we receive only the requests the assistant sends to this site (searching routes and creating or updating a trip), never the conversation. When the assistant tells us it had to look something up elsewhere because Waymark does not have it (a route, a hut, a place to stay, transport to a trailhead), when it adds an option from outside the site to a trip, or when a search here finds nothing, we also keep that topic on its own: the topic, the place it is about, the language, a short note on what was missing and the public web addresses used (without their query part), with no trip, name or network address attached, so we can add what walkers ask for. Each topic is deleted a year after it last came up.

A trips account is required to comment, vote, propose or edit a route. Reading a trip does not need one. To keep your trips and find them again from any device, you can create an account with a username and a password. We store the username, a salted hash of the password (never the password itself), when the account was made and last used, and which trips you saved to it. We ask for no email address, so a forgotten password cannot be reset. Sign-ups and sign-ins are limited per hour in the same way as trip actions. You can delete the account at any time from My trips: that deletes the username, the password hash, your sign-in sessions and your list of saved trips, but not the trips themselves. An account nobody signs in to for a year is deleted automatically. If you can no longer sign in, write to us at the address under Contact and we will delete it for you.

If you email us. Writing to hello@waymarkroutes.com means we receive whatever you send — your address and your message.

Cookies

One cookie for every reader, and it only remembers a language. Waymark is published in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. If you read it in Hebrew or Arabic — or switch back to English — we store that choice so the next page you open comes up in the same language instead of guessing again from your browser settings.

What’s in it. The cookie is named lang and holds a language code — en, he, or ar. Nothing else. It isn’t an identifier, it isn’t tied to an account or to anything you’ve commented, it holds no personal information, and it can’t be used to recognise you.

How long it lasts, and how it’s set. One year, unless you clear it sooner. It’s set SameSite=Lax and Secure, so it’s sent only to this site, only over an encrypted connection, and never to anyone else’s.

Who doesn’t get it. Search-engine crawlers, which are served every language directly and are never given a cookie at all.

It’s a preference, not tracking. No profile, no cross-site history, no advertising use, and it’s never shared with anyone. Clearing your cookies removes it and the site works exactly the same afterwards — it simply falls back to your browser’s language setting. Other than lang, this site sets a cookie only for a shared trip you create, join or open from your personal link, or if you sign in to save trips (below); if you sign in to comment, the sign-in session is held by our comments service on its own comments. subdomain.

One more, only if you sign in to save trips. Signing in to a trips account sets a cookie named tp_session. It holds a random sign-in key and nothing else; we store only a hash of it, next to your account. It is HttpOnly, SameSite=Lax and Secure, so scripts on the page cannot read it and it is sent only to this site, over an encrypted connection. It lasts 90 days, and signing out or deleting the account ends it at once. It is used for nothing but keeping you signed in.

Saved on this device

Some features keep things in your browser, not with us. When you use them, Waymark writes to your browser’s own storage (localStorage). What is kept there stays on this device: it is never sent to our servers, and unlike a cookie it does not travel with any request you make. Clearing this site’s data in your browser settings removes all of it, and the site works the same afterwards.

Saved route lists. When you save a route, your lists (their names, the addresses of the routes in them, and when each was saved) are kept in this browser under waymark:v1:lists. They are not synced to your other browsers or devices, and we cannot see them. If you share a list, the link carries only the list’s name and its route addresses, in the part of the link after the #, which browsers do not send to a server when the link is opened.

Packing lists. When you tick an item on a route’s packing list, mark one as not needed, or add your own, that route’s list (the ticked and hidden item names, the text of the items you added, and when the list was last changed) is kept in this browser under waymark:v1:packing followed by the route’s address, one record per route. It is not synced to your other browsers or devices, and we cannot see it.

Walking pace. When you pick a pace (relaxed, steady or fast) for the walking-time estimates on a route page, that one choice and when you made it are kept in this browser under waymark:v1:pace, so every route shows its times at your pace. It is not synced to your other browsers or devices, and we cannot see it.

Your answers to “Is this route for me?”. When you answer both questions on a route page (the longest day you have walked and the biggest climb you have done in one day), the two answers, as the ranges you picked, and when you gave them are kept in this browser under waymark:v1:fitness, so the next route you open can compare itself with them. The comparison is worked out in your browser: your answers are never sent to us, and we cannot see them. Changing either answer replaces them, and clearing this site’s data removes them.

Planned dates. When you pick a start date on a route, that date (and when you picked it) is kept in this browser under waymark:v1:dates followed by the route’s address, one record per route, so the route still shows your dates when you come back. “Clear dates” deletes it. It is not synced to your other browsers or devices, and we cannot see it. The calendar file “Add to calendar” gives you is made in your browser: nothing about it is sent to us or to anyone else.

Your key to a shared trip. When you create or join a shared trip, or open one from your personal link, this browser keeps a personal key for it in a cookie named tp_k_ followed by the trip’s id. It is HttpOnly, so no script on the page can read it, SameSite=Strict and Secure, and it is sent only with requests to the trip service (/api/trips). The key is what lets you comment, vote and propose routes as yourself (and, for the creator, decide between routes); if you arrived from your personal link, it is removed from the page address as soon as the page opens. It lasts a year, and leaving or deleting the trip ends it at once. Clearing this site’s data in your browser removes it too, after which this browser can no longer act for you on that trip until you open your personal link again.

Routes kept offline. When you tap Keep offline on a route, your browser stores a copy of that route’s page, its printable day cards, its photos and the files they need to display in the browser’s own cache (Cache Storage), so the route opens without signal. To make that possible the site installs a small offline helper in your browser (a service worker). On its own it stores one page, the one shown when you have no connection; everything else is stored only when you ask. A short list of the routes you kept (each route’s name and address, the addresses of the files stored for it, how much space they take, and when you kept it) is kept in this browser under waymark:v1:offline. Keeping a route downloads those files from this site, as opening the page does; the list itself is never sent to us. Removing the route on its page or on your Saved page, or clearing this site’s data in your browser settings, deletes both.

Maps, photos and weather come from other services

Route maps. A trip’s map is drawn with the Leaflet library, loaded from unpkg.com, over map tiles from CARTO built on OpenStreetMap data. The map on a shared trip page is drawn the same way, from the same services. A map loads only if you scroll it into view. When it does, your browser fetches those files directly from those services, and — as with any file a browser fetches — the request carries your IP address and browser to them. We pass them nothing about you, there is no account or API key involved, and we don’t use them to track anyone.

Photos and place descriptions. Route photos come from Wikimedia Commons and the place summaries from Wikipedia, credited on the page. Both are fetched by our server, not by your browser: the photos are served from this site’s own address, so your browser never asks Wikimedia for one and Wikimedia sees our server rather than you. The credits are ordinary links — nothing reaches Wikipedia unless you click one.

Weather forecasts. The forecast on a route page comes from MET Norway (the Norwegian Meteorological Institute), under the CC BY 4.0 licence credited under the forecast. Our server fetches it, not your browser, and only for the route’s own published coordinates: your browser never contacts MET Norway, and nothing about you (not your IP address, your location or anything else) is sent to it. Sunrise and sunset times are worked out in your browser and involve no service at all.

“Open in Google Maps” links. Each day and each segment has a link that opens Google Maps with the place names filled in. It is an ordinary link: nothing goes to Google unless you click it, and what travels with the click is the route’s place names, never anything about you.

What we don’t do

No ad trackers, no marketing pixels, no ad networks, no profile of what you read, and we don’t sell or rent your data to anyone. There’s no newsletter and no mailing list.

Third parties involved

• Cloudflare — hosting and the database the routes are served from. It is also the layer that stores your language choice in the lang cookie; that choice stays on this site.
• Wikimedia (Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons) — the source of the photos and place descriptions. Our server fetches them and serves the photos from this site’s own address, so your browser loads nothing from Wikimedia.
• unpkg and CARTO (map tiles built on OpenStreetMap data) — the map library and the map itself, loaded only when a map comes into view.
• MET Norway (the Norwegian Meteorological Institute): the source of the weather forecasts. Our server fetches them for a route’s own coordinates, so your browser loads nothing from MET Norway.
• Google — only if you sign in to comment or to report a walk, or if you click an “Open in Google Maps” link.

Each handles data under its own privacy policy; we share only what a feature needs to work, and we hand none of them a profile of you.

Partner links

Some links for hotels, tours, flights and apartments go to Booking.com, GetYourGuide, Kayak and Vrbo through Stay22. Links for car rental and a travel eSIM go to Localrent and Airalo through Travelpayouts. If you book through one we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It does not change which routes or places this site shows, and no business pays to appear. Every such link is marked as a partner link.

Such links go through our address /api/go/, which counts the click: one number per kind of link, per where it was shown (a site page, a trip page or a chat with an AI assistant) and per day, and nothing else: no address, cookie or identifier is stored with it. So that one person cannot inflate the count, a hashed identifier derived from your network address is kept for that clock hour only and then deleted. Daily counts are deleted after 90 days. From there you are on Stay22 and then the partner named on the link, which may set its own cookies to credit the booking, under its own privacy policy.

Your comment data

You can delete your own comment or walk report at any time. To delete your account and everything tied to it, email hello@waymarkroutes.com and we’ll handle it.

Children

Waymark isn’t directed at children, and we don’t knowingly collect data from anyone under 13.

Changes

If this policy changes in a way that matters, we’ll update this page and the effective date above.

ChatGPT app

Looking up a route through the ChatGPT app on this site sends the question to our server and returns pages already published here. That lookup does not require an account. We do not send OpenAI your saved trips, your username, or a trip link with its private key.

Saving, changing or deleting a shared trip from ChatGPT uses the same username and password as the site. There is no email on that account and no extra code. The connection is OAuth: ChatGPT receives an access token, which we store only as a hash. The private trip key stays on this server.

The older connector at /mcp is separate. It can still save a trip with a private link. The ChatGPT app at /chatgpt/mcp writes only through the signed-in account. The privacy policy published by OpenAI covers what ChatGPT stores on its side. This app cannot book or pay.