frequently asked questions
GENERAL FAQ ABOUT USING THIS WEBSITE AND OUR OFFER
We use different colors for the hiking symbols in the overview map. These colors reflect our subjective assessment of the difficulty level of each tour:
Easy tour
Moderate tour
Difficult tour
Sometimes you’ll also see two-colored symbols. This simply means that we provide variants of the same tour that differ in difficulty level — for example:
Variants between moderate and difficult
For this classification, however, it is important in our view to keep in mind that it is our subjective assessment based on our level of fitness in each case. In addition, different criteria need to be taken into account in this evaluation, such as distance, trail conditions, elevation gain, etc. There are therefore tours that are long but have trails that are fairly easy to walk on, and which we rate as moderate. Other tours are significantly shorter, but the total elevation gain is higher and the trails are more demanding, so that, in our view, they are difficult tours. It is and remains a subjective assessment.
However, to make the classification at least somewhat more objective for you, we have introduced additional symbols in the individual tour descriptions alongside the difficulty level:
Distance in kilometers
Elevation gain (meters)
Hiking time in hours
Difficulty level (consistent with the color coding in the overview map)
Sun exposure / shade level
Jörn works as a freelance psychologist and offers workshops for companies on team and personality development. These workshops can also take place on Mallorca and can include various outdoor activities aimed at team building — for example guided hikes or road cycling tours.
Feel free to get in touch and tell us what you need and what your goals are — we’ll be happy to put together a complete program for you.
At the time we last hiked a given route, the trails were publicly accessible. If we notice that paths which used to be open have been closed, we will update the tour accordingly. You’re also welcome to contact us if you come across closures that we haven’t documented yet.
Please respect all closures at all times.
The tour description consists of five parts:
Route overview: Short, hard facts for a quick overview of the tour (distance, elevation gain, time, difficulty level, sun/shade).
2D map: This map is the heart of the description. Here you’ll find the track in a top-down view — and this is exactly the map you use in full-screen mode (at the top edge of the map, next to the download icon for the GPX file) to navigate on the hike and follow the track. The 2D maps are also enriched with additional information: besides kilometer markers, we include photo points (camera icon on a green background) and numbered orientation points (white numbers on a red background). The numbers of the orientation points match the numbers in the short tour guide.
3D map: This map helps you get a better feel for the character of the route and the elevation profile. You can rotate, tilt and zoom the maps.
Short tour guide: Even though the 2D map is usually sufficient, we also include a compact, numbered text description. We did this for the unlikely case that your phone gives up, you have no mobile signal, and the 2D map can’t be used anymore. We therefore recommend copying the info from the website and taking it with you as a printout.
Tour FAQ: Every tour has its own FAQ section that addresses a few tour-specific questions — for example the GPS coordinates of the parking area, the highlights of the route, and what we think you should definitely keep in mind.
Use all of this information (and the weather report — see the Weather FAQ) to prepare for your hike. Get a realistic picture of the distance, the condition of the paths and the elevation gain, and plan your supplies of food and water rather generously.
The maps make it possible to do the tours without a hiking guide. All you need is a smartphone with mobile internet and a web browser.
Once you’ve chosen a tour, you can simply navigate to the parking area at the start of the route. In the tour FAQ under “Where does the hike start?”, we provide the GPS coordinates of the parking area. Clicking it opens Google Maps, so you can start route navigation. This is a big help because, in our experience, directions to trailhead starting points in traditional hiking guidebooks are often unclear and ambiguous. We have sometimes spent up to two hours just trying to find the right parking area — but that won’t happen with our maps.
For the hike itself, you only need the 2D map shown on the left in the tour description. Ideally, switch the map to full-screen mode in your browser (at the top edge of the map next to the GPX download icon). If you have enabled GPS location, you’ll see your current position as a blue dot on the map. You basically just need to follow the track. As long as you stay on marked paths and don’t go off-route, your track should match exactly — and you won’t miss any junctions. Some tours are off-trail, however, and there may be several paths you could follow. In that case, you should avoid straying too far from our route.
Navigation in the mountains on Mallorca is often extremely difficult because there is practically no signposting. To avoid getting lost, you should make sure your phone battery lasts for the entire hike. Keep in mind that map display — especially in strong sunlight with high screen brightness — consumes a lot of power. If you’re hiking alone, we therefore recommend bringing a power bank with you. If you’re hiking with others, a good strategy is to take turns: not everyone needs to keep the map open all the time, which saves battery.
The core of Mallorca-Touren is to make it possible to do without hiking guidebooks that are poorly written or ambiguous — and to prevent you from wandering through the mountains disoriented and frustrated. With our approach, you don’t need a guidebook because the tracks are unambiguous and are increasingly supplemented with photos of landmarks for additional orientation. We therefore keep our tour descriptions to the minimum necessary (under “Short route guide”), while still providing enough information density to serve as a fallback option if your battery is empty or you have no reception at the moment.
Routes marked as easy are well suited for people with average fitness. Moderate and difficult routes require endurance, sure-footedness, and sturdy footwear.
In summer you need plenty of water and sun protection, and in winter warm clothing — the weather has a major impact on both the hiking experience and safety. Because weather plays such an essential role, we provide exclusive weather data for our routes. You’ll find everything you need to know in the Weather FAQ.
In our experience, mobile coverage in the Tramuntana is solid to good. So far it has only happened very rarely that we had outages, and because they were short, they did not affect our orientation. However, since a loss of coverage is a realistic scenario, we recommend familiarizing yourself thoroughly with the tour in advance and carrying the provided information with you as a printout.
Yes, that’s possible. If you have a navigation device with you, you can download each tour as a GPX file and load it onto your own device. You’ll find the GPX files at the top edge of the 2D map for each tour.
Absolutely! You’re welcome to link to or quote the site. Commercial reuse requires prior agreement.
FAQ on displaying the weather forecast on the individual hiking pages of mallorca-touren.com
For the start point and the summit/destination of each tour, we fetch high-resolution weather data from MetGIS and show you a 24-hour forecast with hourly resolution: temperature, precipitation, wind speed & wind direction, as well as sunshine/cloud cover. This helps you plan start time, clothing, supplies and alternatives — especially in the Tramuntana, where the weather in the mountains often behaves completely differently than down in the valley or by the sea.
• Temperature in °C
• Precipitation in
mm/h
• Wind speed in m/s plus wind direction (arrows)
• Sunshine & cloud cover in % (bars in the temperature chart)
Everything is shown separately for the start point and the summit/destination.
The data comes from MetGIS, a weather service specialized in mountainous terrain. MetGIS combines large global and regional models (e.g., ECMWF, ICON, GFS) with a very high-resolution elevation model and “downscales” the forecasts topographically — even in complex mountain and coastal landscapes.
This means:
• Wind, temperature and precipitation are adjusted for altitude, slope position and exposure.
• Even
small valleys, coastal cliffs and ridges are captured better than with standard apps.
In short: the forecasts are not “Mallorca-wide”, but as local as possible at your tour start and at your summit/destination.
MetGIS recalculates its forecasts several times a day as soon as fresh model runs are available. Our system retrieves the data live via an API and only caches it briefly (approx. 20 minutes) so the page stays fast.
So in most cases you see the current model run — not outdated, “stale” data.
• Timing: Spot rain windows, bring your start forward or push it back.
• Gear: e.g., layering, gloves, rain jacket, sun protection.
• Supplies: Drink a lot in summer, warm drinks
in winter (keep temperature drop with altitude and wind chill in mind).
• Route choice: If it’s
stormy and wet on the summit but the coastal section looks calmer, you can deliberately change plans.
Goal: You decide in an informed and independent way whether and how you do a tour.
Between the start (e.g., at coastal level) and the summit, there are often completely different conditions:
• Temperature differences due to altitude
• Different
wind direction and wind speed due to orography
• “Sludge/soup” (very wet conditions) with more precipitation on
the mountain than in the valley
With separate curves for start point and summit/destination, you can plan more realistically: Approach & ascent vs. conditions up top.
Tabs:
• “Temperature”, “Rain”, “Wind”, “Table start”, “Table destination”
Temperature:
• Line chart in °C
• Orange:
start point, blue: summit/destination
• Yellow and gray bars in the background: sunshine (yellow) and cloud cover
(gray) in %
Rain:
• Bars in mm/h — from “almost nothing” to “soaking wet”
• Start
point and summit/destination shown separately
Wind:
• Lines for wind speed in m/s
• Arrows
show direction and strength (length / color)
• Tooltips show exact values
Tables:
• All values also shown again as a table per location (start / destination) — scrollable if the screen is small.
No weather model is infallible — especially in mountains, thunderstorms, valley wind systems and microclimates can be surprising. MetGIS is, however, one of the better sources for mountain and coastal regions because it downscales the forecasts topographically.
What remains important: Use this information as a planning basis, not as an official warning. Always observe weather and terrain yourself and make your decisions with common sense.
We show the forecasts in Mallorca’s local time (CET/CEST, Europe/Madrid) — in a 24-hour format and in German-style notation (e.g., “03.12–14h”).
No. The service is free for you — part of our approach: “Hike independently & well prepared.”
FAQ ON DISPLAYING WEATHER ON THE MAPS OF MALLORCA-TOUREN.COM
Our weather maps come from MetGIS and show the calculated weather situation for Mallorca in spatial resolution.
On the tour maps you can enable different overlays:
• Temperature overlay (“MetGIS Temp (°C)”): The map is colored across the whole area. Warm colors (yellow,
orange, red) indicate higher temperatures; cool colors (green, blue, violet) indicate lower temperatures.
• Precipitation overlay (“MetGIS Precip 3h-Sum (mm)”): Blue to violet color tones show how much rain can fall within a three-hour time window. The stronger the color, the more precipitation is expected in the respective 3-hour interval.
• Cloud cover overlay (“MetGIS Cloud cover (%)”): Gray tones show how overcast the sky is. The darker, the denser the cloud cover.
The colored area lies over the base map and gives you a quick overview of how temperature, precipitation, or cloud cover is distributed across the terrain.
On the right side of the map you see the vertical color legend:
• For the temperature overlay, each color has a numeric value in degrees Celsius (°C) next to it. Example:
“12” means that areas in this color are roughly around 12 °C.
• For the precipitation overlay,
each color has a value in millimeters of rain (mm) next to it, which can fall within the 3-hour time window. Example: “4” means that about 4 mm of rain is expected in that period. This usually corresponds to continuous light
to moderate rain.
• For the cloud cover overlay, each color has a value in percent (%) next to
it. Example: “75” means roughly 75% coverage (mostly cloudy).
The legends are directly linked to the overlays:
• If you enable “Temperature” in the map controls on the right, the temperature legend appears.
• If
you enable “Precipitation”, the precipitation legend appears.
• If you enable “Cloud cover”, the cloud cover legend
appears.
• If you disable all overlays, the legends are hidden.
This way you can see at a glance which colors correspond to which values.
In addition to the colored overlay, you can query current MetGIS values at any point on the map:
• Desktop: Click on the map with your mouse.
• Smartphone: Tap the desired location with your finger.
A small window opens showing, among other things:
• Temperature at the clicked point
• Precipitation
intensity (mm/h)
• Wind speed and wind direction
• Cloud
cover in percent
• The timestamp at which the current values were calculated
This information comes from the Current dataset of the MetGIS model and shows you the currently calculated conditions for exactly this point — not only for the nearest place down in the valley, but also in the middle of the mountains.
Important: Unlike the colored overlays, where values are aggregated in a 1 km grid and therefore allow hardly any differentiation between mountain and valley, the values from the Current dataset are point-specific. Here you can click the start point and destination of the hike separately and get information about the current conditions along the route.
For precipitation, Mallorca-Touren provides two different types of information that you can usefully combine:
RAIN OVERLAYS ON THE MAP (3-HOUR SUMS)
• The slider below the map shows different 3-hour windows on a timeline (e.g., 07:00–10:00, 10:00–13:00, etc.).
• For each of these time windows, the total amount of rain is shown that can fall within those three hours.
• Darker,
stronger blue tones mean: more rain is to be expected in this area.
• This allows you to identify rain windows
very well: when and where it is likely to get really wet on the island — and when drier phases are more likely.
POINT-SPECIFIC PRECIPITATION VALUES (mm/h)
• When you click on the map, you additionally get the precipitation intensity in mm/h for exactly that point.
• This
value describes how hard it is raining right now (i.e., in the current model state):
• 0 mm/h = dry
• 0.1–0.5 mm/h = barely noticeable precipitation / very light rain
• approx. 0.5–2 mm/h = light rain
• from approx. 2–3 mm/h = noticeable rain; depending on duration potentially unpleasant on a hike
HOW YOU CAN USE BOTH FOR HIKE PLANNING
• Before the tour (hours to a day in advance): Use
the slider and the precipitation overlay to see in which 3-hour windows along your route the largest rain amounts are expected.
• Plan
your start time and route so that you avoid strong rain windows as much as possible.
• This is especially important
in the mountains, because rain often comes with poor visibility and slippery paths.
• Shortly before the start / while on the way, additionally use the point query:
• Click
on the start point, the summit, or critical sections of your tour.
• Check how hard it is raining there right now,
and whether the situation is calming down or getting worse (compared to the rain overlay).
Interpretation:
• If the map shows little rain for “your” 3-hour window and the point query reports 0–0.5 mm/h, chances are good for
a dry or only slightly damp hike.
• If the map shows high 3-hour sums (strong blue tones) and the point query already
reports noticeable rain intensity, you should critically check the tour, route, or start time — especially on exposed summit paths.
This way, the MetGIS data gives you both a time-aggregated overview of rain phases (3-hour sums) and point-specific instant values — a combination that is particularly well suited for realistic preparation for hikes on Mallorca.