Walk! The Costa Blanca Mountains – now as a pdf
Spain’s Costa Blanca is so much more than the coastal strip – look inland – you could be up on those white mountains!
Walk! The Costa Blanca Mountains is available as a printed book – from today you can also download the pdf version. Perfect if there’s no time to get the printed copy before you head off adventuring. It’s also handy if you want to print off one or two pages to carry for the day, saving weight in your pack.
FInd out more here:
discoverywalking 
That’s a useful idea!
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Isn’t it just!
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Over the last month my walking customers have been testing the Discoverywalking sheet map and downloadable basemaps on the eTrek Garmin 20 GPS for the treks and walking holidays we organise in the Costa Blanca Mountains.
The sheet maps are useful, although the 1:40,000 scale in the Spanish countryside is at the limit for precise navigating, the roads on the map translate as 55 metres wide on the ground – easily enough to get misplaced for a while. Some of what appear as roads are overgrown dirt that are now footpaths, you can still get through but it can be a bit confusing so if you want to go off the marked routes you will need to be patient.
The marking of existing official routes and recommended routes is very good, there are some minor omissions and in one case replicating an error found on the local 1:20,000 topo. Not perfect but a very good approximation and an improvement on the local maps. The problem here is still the abysmal way marking of routes on the ground.
The area covered is quite extensive, although some of my routes fall outside the eastern margin of the coverage.
The basemaps for the Garmin GPS are very good, despite an initial problem with the download (for some reason Windows 7 stripped off the filetype which you have add manually) they are now installed on all my Garmins. The image is very clear, much better than my own 1:25,000 basemaps that blur on zooming in.
The maps load relatively quickly on start-up and as you are walking the change from one tile to another is very smooth, in fact it is barely perceptible.
All in all a great improvement for those of us who have been struggling with Spanish maps for years, My only reservation is the 1:40,000 scale, I would love it if you would considering publishing 1:20,000 or 1:25,000 maps as a future upgrade.
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Thank you very much Erik, for your comprehensive and most useful report. The points that you make are noted and will be of great help when preparing new editions.. It would be of help if you could let us know the location of the error you refer to on the paper map so we can address this.
Most exciting is your report on the maps for Garmin GPS. These maps are a new venture for Discovery Walking Guides so your detailed comments are invaluable for us, and it’s great to receive such positive feedback.
I am passing your review on to our cartographer, David Brawn, who I am sure will also want to respond.
Thanks again!
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