About Masstrails.com

What

This site was created to provide a comprehensive list of all of the useful, free, publicly available trail maps in Massachusetts. While there are other sites that point you to great places, the goal here was fo find, organize, and continually curate a listing of all of them. Since Masstrails.com was launched in 2013, the number of maps listed here has grown from just under 2,000 to well over 3,000.

To be included in this site, a map must be:

  • Free. We don't point to any pay-for-access sites, and you won't pay to access them here.
  • Useful. The map needs to be reasonably legible and show trails.
  • Unique. Many maps are hosted on multiple sites; we only link to one version.

Who

A few people and a dog who thought building this site would be fun and worthwile. If it's been fun and/or worthwhile for you, tell us, or better yet, show us by making a donation below. Note that we don't recieve any government money (nor do we seek any), and as of November 2018 the site is ad-free. So, consider helping out–the time we spend on our computers helps you spend less time on yours and more time outdoors.

How

Lots of Web searching, combined with our knowledge of the state and the people and entities here that make maps of the outdoors. Could you find all these places on your own? You sure could, but trust us, you don't want to.

Whatnot

Things you won't generally see:

  • City parks, unless there's some reasonably wild component and/or a connection to something reasonably wild. An exception to this are rail-trails that pass through cities.
  • Maps which describe specific hikes or rides, unless they provide other context.
  • "Locator" maps: Many sites will show you an outline of an area, the main entrance/parking, or some point within the area. These might get you there, but aren't much help beyond that, so for the most they're not listed here.

Contact

Contact us if you know of a map that we should include, encounter a broken link (or any other technical issue), have a question, would like to sponsor the site, etc. etc. masstrails@gmail.com