Hiking Time Calculator

Naismith's Rule is a hiking time formula devised in 1892 by Scottish mountaineer William Naismith. The rule: allow 1 hour for every 5 km of distance, plus 1 hour for every 600 m of elevation gain. Despite being over 130 years old, it remains the most widely used hiking time estimate in outdoor planning.

Naismith's Rule is best understood as a minimum time for a reasonably fit hiker on a good trail. Most hikers take 10–30% longer due to terrain roughness, fatigue, photo stops, navigation, and weather. If you're new to hiking or the route is steep and technical, add a buffer. The pack weight correction helps account for a loaded backpack.

A heavier pack slows your pace — both because of the additional effort to move the weight and because your legs tire faster. This tool applies a 1% time increase per kg of pack weight. A 10 kg pack adds roughly 10% to your moving time; a 20 kg pack adds 20%. This is a commonly cited approximation and is conservative — real impact depends on fitness and terrain.

Moving time is the pure hiking duration based on distance and elevation — no breaks included. Total time adds rest stops on top of that. Enter "Minutes of rest per hour" to see total time. A common rule of thumb is 10 minutes of rest per hour of hiking, which adds roughly 15–17% to your moving time over a full day.

No — Naismith's original rule ignores descent time, treating it as effectively included in the horizontal pace. Langmuir's corrections (1984) add time for steep descents, but for most trail hikes Naismith's base gives a good enough estimate. If your route has significant steep downhill sections, add a personal buffer.

If your GPX has no elevation data, the tool applies a 5% gradient assumption to estimate elevation gain. You'll see a notice in the route summary. For more accurate results, use a GPX exported from a device or app that records elevation — most GPS watches and hiking apps (AllTrails, Gaia GPS, Komoot) do this by default.

100% private. Your GPX file never leaves your browser — all processing happens locally on your device. We don't store, track, or see any of your route data.

Once you know the hiking time and distance, use the GPX Calorie Calculator to estimate how many calories you'll burn and how much food to carry. It uses the same GPX file.