Trail Maps & Guides to the American Discovery Trail
Hiking America · Trail Maps & Guides
The American Discovery Trail runs coast to coast, from Point Reyes, California to Cape Henlopen, Delaware — continuous, dual-directional, and stitched together from Sierra passes, prairie county roads, canal towpaths, and coastal rail-trail. Between the wild stretches there's rarely a blaze, so the route lives or dies on the quality of its maps.
Hiking America maps all 15 states across both the northern and southern routes, in both directions: turn-by-turn guides, a curated Gaia GPS layer, and reroutes and water reports from hikers out on the trail this season. The 15 states are grouped by route below, west to east.
Free poster map
The whole route on one printable sheet, 36 × 24 or a 36 × 14 strip, with 437 trail towns marked. Drop in your email and the download is yours.
We'll email you a link. Tap it to confirm and get the download.
Interactive mapZoom in to see every segment, then tap any line for its segment and state guide.
Hiking America is an independent navigation resource. This map is not authorized by, and has no affiliation with, the American Discovery Trail Society. Our routes are our own, developed and continuously verified through field research and hiker feedback. They are not the official route of the American Discovery Trail, are not derived from American Discovery Trail Society materials, and may deviate from the route marked with signage. Overview for planning, not for navigation. Check local regulations and current weather before you go.
Water, camps, resupply and every turn live in the turn-by-turn guides and the member Gaia GPS layers.
↓ Jump to the state guidesThe Trail at a Glance
West of Denver, every ADT hiker walks the same trail. It splits near Sheridan, Colorado into a northern route through Nebraska and Iowa and a southern route through Kansas and Missouri, then the two rejoin near Cincinnati at Elizabethtown, Ohio and run east as one line to the Atlantic. A thru-hiker picks one side or the other — about 4,900 miles either way — not both.
What's in Every State Guide
Each state guide breaks the crossing into sections: the terrain you'll actually walk, when the season opens and closes, where water and resupply sit, and the turn-by-turn segment guides you download and carry. The waypoints are curated for what's reachable on foot from the corridor, not a phone-book dump of everything a town happens to have.
The curated Gaia GPS layer maps every water source, camp, road crossing, and resupply point along your route. California, Maryland, and Delaware are open as free previews, so you can read a full guide and see the format before you decide.
The rest of the ADT tracks are subscription-only. A membership emails you an invitation to each state's Gaia GPS folder and unlocks the downloadable PDF segment guides, for $15 a month or $89 a year. The guides and GPS data are corrected season to season against reports from hikers currently walking the trail, so what you carry reflects the route as it stands now — closures, reroutes, and new water sources included.
Can I use Hiking America data on a Garmin handheld?
Partly. Garmin's GPSMAP H1 manual lists a waypoint's name, location, elevation and depth, with no field for notes, so the Hiker Notes have nowhere to show on an H1. They stay in Gaia GPS and in your turn-by-turn guide, which carries every note with its coordinates and elevation.
Great American Rail-Trail tracks are free to anyone as GPX. Copy the file into your Garmin's GPX folder over USB or sync it through Garmin Explore. A track will most likely arrive on the unit as a course.
American Discovery Trail GPS data is subscription-only and delivered through Gaia GPS, not as GPX downloads. Gaia can export a folder you have access to as a GPX file for your own device, but that file is a snapshot. It won't pick up the corrections we make through the season as hikers report changes, and our Terms of Use don't allow sharing it. The live version is always the one in Gaia.
Pending a hands-on test on a GPSMAP H1.
Every State, West to East
The trail splits near Denver. Pick the route you're hiking — the split states below (Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio) each have a separate guide for the northern and the southern line.
Shared West
Northern Route
Southern Route
Shared East
Free Email Course · Six Parts
Six emails, one every two weeks, on the planning decisions specific to the American Discovery Trail, starting with which of its two routes to walk. The first arrives the moment you sign up, with the complete Delaware turn-by-turn guide and its live Gaia GPS folder.
Unsubscribe whenever you like. What the six cover