What is orienteering?

Orienteering is a sport for all ages that combines map reading with physical exercise. The aim is to navigate between various "control" points on a specically designed orienteering map. To be competitive, you need to do this in the shortest time possible but it's very common to simply orienteer for fun.

Throughout the country there are a number of permanent orienteering courses which are open to the public to use at any time. These are usually in places like parks, nature reserves, forests, national parks as well as some urban areas.

Finding courses & maps

Oriento includes a list of all the courses that are supported, just hit Browse Courses above and you'll be able to find courses that are near you.

Once you've found a course, you'll need to get hold of a map - it's much more fun if you have a map printed out rather than on your phone screen. Due to copyright reasons, we can't provide downloadable maps for all courses on Oriento so you'll find specific instructions on how to get a map for each course.

Course types & rules

Each course has different rules that you should follow when running to avoid being disqualified from the leaderboards. For example, some courses the control points must be visited in order whereas others can be visited in any other you choose. Some courses have a maximum time and others do not.