Difficulty levels

Defining the “difficulty” of a walking trip requires considering many aspects:

• the technical characteristics of the route and the type of terrain, whether comfortable dirt roads or rugged trails;
• the physical effort required due to the length and the total uphill elevation gain of the various stages;
• the option of having luggage transported separately or, alternatively, the need to carry a fully loaded backpack;
• the typically expected weather conditions, more or less adverse;
• the presence of refreshment points and water sources along the route;
• the type of accommodation in the places where you stay, more or less basic depending on availability along the itineraries.

And to these, which are only the main elements, others could be added, always considering that particular external conditions — such as extreme heat or continuous rainfall, for example — can make a trip more difficult than it would otherwise be.

It is therefore not straightforward to determine exactly how easy or difficult a trip will be. We therefore provide below some general guidelines, inviting you not to underestimate the experience you are about to undertake and to train in advance in order to enjoy it at its best.

Our rating scale identifies 4 difficulty levels: tourist, moderate, challenging, very challenging. To gain a further and more in-depth understanding of the effort required, we strongly recommend always carefully reading on our website the stage lengths and the uphill and downhill elevation gains shown in the Program of each walking trip.

A “+” may also be added to the difficulty level, indicating that while remaining within that level, the trip is at the upper limit of difficulty.

Therefore, a Moderate+ level represents a trip that remains moderate but with some slightly greater difficulty that does not yet make it challenging. Likewise, a Challenging+ trip will not yet be considered very challenging, but will present some additional difficulties compared to a standard Challenging trip.