GR stands for “Grande Randonée”, French for “long distance footpath”. This apparently simple web site has an extensive list of the GRS in France.
This website is the gold mine I was looking for. It has the GPS tracks for all the GRs, It’s quite impressive.
There are topo-guides and IGN cartes here in France, but I don’t like paper. This website has it all virtually.
The ERA website suggests we go to their partner website, Traildino, to get more information on the european routes. Indeed, in the ERA website, there’s close to no information on the routes themselves, except for a really crude map.
Traildino has a lot of information about hiking trails all around the world. It has comments, ratings, some maps, references and links to experiences on the trails.
I am using Traildino to set up my route on a big scale. I see which “Grande Randonée” the E5 corresponds to and look at those GRs individually.
I have mentioned Hitchwiki some time ago. So, what is it?
Hitchwiki is a wiki – kind of like wikipedia – where people can share any information about hitch-hiking. Anyone can add information, whether it’s about the best spots to hitch out of a city, the best way to hitch into a city, what the regional laws are, what to do or what not to do.
It’s awesome, really. There’s a plethora of information. There’s even a map for easy visualization of the good and the bad spots.
I used hitchwiki constantly to get information on my way from Berlin to Finistère.
BeWelcome is an open source project by a non-profit organization. It works similar to CouchSurfing.
How different is it? Well, it’s open source, and it’s non-profit. So anyone can be part of the web site’s development, and there’s no one making money out of your hospitality. Also, its terms of service are friendlier and don’t claim ownership on your information.
Where will I sleep while on this journey? Camping, most of the time. But I will also try my chance at Couch Surfing.
You can follow my profile here:
https://www.couchsurfing.org/people/unpreparedhiker/
Couch Surfing is not new to me: I have surfed and hosted many times in the past, but I’ve always had some time to organize myself. This time I’ll be always on the move, so I might be 20km short of reaching the destination on schedule, or arrive a day too early.
Let’s see how this goes. If you find yourself on my route and would like to host me, please let me know =)