Yes, we are asking you to pay

If you have looked at one of our walks recently you may have noticed that we are now selling the GPX routes of our walks which you can put on your GPS to help you find your way and also the PDF versions of the walks suitable for printing or storing on your mobile phone or tablet and I thought it was worth explaining why.

This site costs us a lot of money to run. For Beth it's now her full time job: researching each walk, going out on the fells to check it out and take all the photos she needs to illustrate it, then coming back to write it up, categorize it, edit her track on the map if she's taken detours while investigating it, creating the GPX route, and selecting the right photos from the ones she's taken. All of that takes time.

On top of that there's our costs in equipment, both walking and logistical - fuel, servicing and deprecation on our vehicle.

Meanwhile we've also got the costs of the web site itself: my time updating the site and also the cost of the server on which it's hosted.

All of this has to be paid for somehow. As you know we do carry adverts at the bottom of our pages but sadly very few of our users click through and purchase anything (which is the only time we make any money from them). And even our T-shirts, which we sell at cost, are seldom purchased.

So, if we are to continue bringing you the best walks in the Lake District then we need to look at other ways of making money. The first of these is asking you to pay if you want a GPX route file or PDF version of the walk.

It's only £1 - less than the price of a cup of coffee or a half of bitter. Is that too much to ask to help keep WalkLakes going?

N.B. Before you can make a purchase you need to log in or register using the links in the top right hand corner of any page on the site.

Tagged: news

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