In a previous article "Accessing Pre-Vectorized Trail Data from China's Outdoor Platform: Two Step Road - MalaGIS", I introduced a popular domestic platform for downloading, sharing, and hosting trail data. Many users found it quite useful, but some outdoor enthusiasts raised concerns: what if such a platform shuts down? Would they still be able to safely download their own data? I cannot guarantee that, but if you have such concerns, an open-source trail data management platform called Wanderer is recommended.

About Wanderer

Wanderer is an open-source self-hosted trail database. Users can upload recorded tracks or create new routes, and build an easily searchable route database by adding rich metadata.

Official Website:

Official Website: https://wanderer.to/

As outdoor enthusiasts, we often encounter the following situations:

  1. After each outdoor activity, there are a large number of GPX, KML, TCX, and other track files, which are vast and disorganized.
  2. Wanting to query "that route from last May" but finding it tedious to browse through folders and difficult to perform statistical analysis.
  3. Wanting to organize tracks, photos, labels, and notes together, but existing tools are often limited to single functions.
  4. Wanting to share or manage personal route collections with groups or teams, but having to rely on cloud services or pay fees.

Therefore, a "self-hosted system that allows uploading tracks, managing routes, searching, and sharing" is particularly attractive.

Main Features

  • Upload and manage various formats of GPS track files.
  • Built-in route planning tools for designing new hiking or cycling routes.
  • Powerful map integration, supporting multiple map sources and track visualization.
  • Share routes with friends and explore others' exciting tracks.
  • Advanced search and filtering functions to quickly find desired routes.
  • Create custom lists to organize route data by theme or region.

Technical Architecture

  • Frontend: Built with SvelteKit.
  • Backend: Based on a custom/forked version of PocketBase (a lightweight but feature-rich backend service).
  • Indexing/Search Service: Uses Meilisearch for full-text and efficient retrieval.

It is a three-tier system of "frontend + backend + search engine", employing a complete frontend-backend separation design, efficient search engine integration, multi-user data and permission management, and a responsive map visualization interface.

Quick Start

Recommended to use Docker Compose for quick installation:

# Download the docker-compose configuration file
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Flomp/wanderer/main/docker-compose.yml

# Build and start via docker compose
docker compose up -d

After starting, you can access the frontend interface via localhost:3000. PS: For production deployment, be sure to modify the MEILI_MASTER_KEY variable to ensure system security.

Summary

Recall the article "This Guy Made a GIS System with His 10 Years of Running Data" where the author introduced a running enthusiast who created a GIS system with his 10 years of running data. Similarly, the developer of Wanderer, Flomp, is an outdoor enthusiast and developer. To escape the issues of "third-party platform lock-in" and "lack of privacy control", he developed this system and open-sourced it. Indeed, interest is the primary productivity driver.

If you are also a GIS developer who loves open source and life, welcome to share your good projects with the author.