WalkPlanners 

If you're thinking of walking Budleigh to Beer, say, you can see instantly that the first half is pretty easy, but the second half much less so. On the approach to Beer, there is a Tricky Bit (explained in more detail elsewhere on the map). Then the next stage, beyond Beer, coloured purple, is somewhere between the first two for effort. Note the out-of-town car parks and helpful bus routes, too.

You can see here the six effort ratings used to categorise the 37 stages on the SWCP east sheet, from Easy to Tough. As well as conveying the key features of the path itself, the map marks lodgings at the split-points between stages, diversions along the way, ferries you need to cross rivers, Tricky Bits and isolated car parks – great for people planning to use the two-car trick. All helpful bus services are shown, clearly categorised.

When walking the SW Coast Path, covered by our first WalkPlanners, the tradition is that you start at Minehead and finish at Poole Harbour. So deep rooted is this tradition, that all existing guide-books are based on the assumption that you will follow it. But if you don't need the step-by-step directions of a guide-book (and no-one does, actually) you can walk any stage in either direction, and our stage info makes no assumptions about which you choose. If you are walking the path in bits, this flexibility can be very helpful.

Unless you are walking your trail from end to end with a tent on your back, you're quite likely to want to make use of buses or remote car parks, or both. One or two existing guide-books mark car parks on their detailed walking maps, but they can't handle bus routes because their maps don't reach far enough inland to show the routes in a meaningful way. On our 1:200k map, we can do that, with services categorised and colour-coded, and routes numbered.

Of course, much of your walk planning is likely to take place at home, where it's no problem to refer to hefty books or even a three-book or four-book series. But you might find it helpful to do some planning as you go, and in that case the pocket size and minimal weight of our WalkPlanners (currently 65g) will be valuable. As for price: SWCPA Official Guide £20; National Trails Official Guide set £60; Trailblazer guides set £41.

If you want to keep a record of your progress on the coast path, you can pay the SWCPA £25 for a scratch-off map. Or you can get your highlighters out and colour in the white bits of the coastal line on our WalkPlanner. The stage descriptions have space for brief notes – eg when you walked it an with whom.