AllTrails
Ages 5-14 · freemium · Product · alltrails.com ↗
AllTrails is a hiking and trail discovery app with 450,000+ routes worldwide. Families search for trails using filters like kid-friendly, stroller-friendly, and difficulty level, then navigate using GPS maps on their phones. Community reviews with photos and condition reports help families choose appropriate hikes. A live-share feature lets family members track each other's location in real time.
We've reviewed AllTrails against our 9-literacy developmental framework. The main growth opportunity: AllTrails is a planning tool, not a developmental experience.
Strengths & gaps
Strengths
- ● AllTrails supports family decision-making. Choosing a trail requires genuine judgment: evaluating difficulty against family ability, weighing distance vs. scenery, and reading community reviews with varying perspectives. This is real-world decision-making with real consequences.
- ● The app creates outdoor curiosity. Trail descriptions, photos, and condition reports answer "where should we go?" while creating "what's out there?" motivation.
Gaps
- ○ AllTrails is a planning tool, not a developmental experience. The developmental value comes from hiking, which AllTrails facilitates but doesn't create. With 5 Not Assessed capacities, the app's scope is inherently narrow.
- ○ No standout developmental strength. The app does many things well but nothing that reaches Strong on this framework.
Detailed scores
How AllTrails performs on each of the 9 literacies in our framework.
Doing
— 0 of 3 Strong
AllTrails supports self-directed outdoor exploration. Families set their own goals, choose difficulty levels, and decide where to go. The app provides information to support these choices without prescribing them. But the agency is in the family's hiking decision, not in the app itself.
Hiking a challenging trail builds persistence. But AllTrails is a planning tool that helps families choose trails. The persistence comes from the outdoor activity, not from anything AllTrails designs or scaffolds.
Real-world hiking involves genuine adaptation: weather changes, trail conditions, unexpected obstacles. But AllTrails doesn't create or scaffold these experiences. It's a map, not a teacher.
Thinking
— 0 of 3 Strong
AllTrails creates curiosity about the outdoors. Browsing trails with photos and descriptions generates "what's down that trail?" moments. Community photos show what to expect. This is genuine discovery motivation, even though the depth of curiosity depends on the hike itself.
No creative component exists in AllTrails. Creativity is outside the app's scope.
Trail selection requires evaluating multiple factors: difficulty rating, distance, elevation gain, community reviews (with varying perspectives and recency), kid-friendliness, and weather conditions. Choosing an overly difficult trail with young kids has real consequences. This is genuine decision-making.
Being
— 0 of 3 Strong
AllTrails facilitates family hiking, which is inherently a connected activity. The live-share feature specifically supports family safety and engagement. But the connection comes from hiking together, not from the app's design.
Hiking outdoors builds self-regulation through managing fatigue, discomfort, and weather. But AllTrails doesn't create or scaffold these experiences.
No identity, values, or contribution dimension. Purpose is outside AllTrails' scope.
Based on 4 sources
Reviewed by New Literacies
Scored by our research-derived framework · AI-assisted analysis with editorial review · 4 sources reviewed · Our methodology →
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