Reviving Trails

Reviving Trails was a 2024 action-research Challenge in Monti Prenestini (Lazio, Italy) that prototyped a participatory, platform-first method for mapping, narrating, and digitally disseminating hiking itineraries aimed at proximity tourism and safer, more informed use of historic paths. It ran from August 26 to September 13, 2024, with 6 days on the ground.

Across 7 hikes totaling 41.5 km, the team identified and documented 81 points of interest (POIs) and created 28 carefully curated trail profiles published on AllTrails, Komoot, Wikiloc, and Outdooractive. The workflow combined on-site GPX tracking, structured POI forms, photographic storytelling, and platform-specific editing to reach less-experienced hikers who typically plan trips through these apps.

Fieldwork was coordinated in advance with CAI Palestrina and ran in iterative plan–map–analyze–refine cycles with role-based field teams. The Challenge closed with feasibility studies for 15 future initiatives (including two articulated Business Model Canvases), showing how targeted digital promotion can bolster a local, sustainable tourism economy, while meeting its limits (weather windows, content homogeneity, platform update frictions) and the need to pair digital promotion with ongoing physical maintenance of trails.