It Started With a Wrong Turn
In the spring of 2011, somewhere on the fringes of Dartmoor, two walkers found themselves thoroughly lost. The guidebook they carried was five years out of date, a crucial footbridge had been removed, and the supposed shortcut through a farmyard was now blocked by an extremely territorial goose.
That frustrating afternoon, spent retracing steps and recalculating routes, planted the seed of what would become True-juniper. If experienced walkers could be caught out by outdated information and missing waymarks, how many others were having similar experiences? And how many people were simply not walking at all because the planning seemed too daunting?
From Frustration to Purpose
We spent the following year walking. Not casually, but systematically. We traced the routes that guidebooks recommended and discovered which descriptions held up and which sent walkers astray. We talked to farmers about access, to publicans about parking, to fellow walkers about their own misadventures.
What emerged from that year of research was a simple realisation: good route information is not about listing every tree and stile. It is about anticipating the questions a walker will have at each decision point and providing clear, reliable answers.
"We do not want to tell people where to walk. We want to give them the confidence to walk wherever curiosity leads them."
