Find a running trail near you

Quick answers before you head out

How do I find running trails near me?

Start on the map — hit the locate button and it drops you on the trails closest to you, then tap any pin for the surface, the loop distance and the hours. If you would rather read a list, every one of the 6,039 cities and towns in the directory has its own page with the trails in it, ranked by what runners actually say about them. The thing worth doing before you drive out: check the loop distance and the surface, not just the name. A "5 mile trail system" and a "5 mile loop" are completely different runs — one is 5 miles of paths that may dead-end, the other is 5 miles you can run without repeating yourself. Browse every state →

What surface is best for running?

The honest answer is: vary them. Asphalt and concrete are fast, predictable and always runnable, but they are the least forgiving over big mileage. Crushed limestone — the classic rail-trail surface — is softer underfoot and still smooth enough for tempo work. Natural-surface dirt and singletrack are the easiest on the joints and the most fun, but they are also where you find roots, rocks and mud for days after rain. Runners who rotate surfaces through the week tend to load their legs in different ways instead of hammering the same tissue every day; running every mile on one hard surface is what tends to catch up with people. Pick by the run: intervals on something smooth, easy days on something soft. We have a confirmed surface on 7,337 paved trails and counting. Browse trails by surface →

How long is the loop?

This is the first question and the one most trail listings dodge, so we separate two numbers that get mixed up everywhere. Loop distance is what you run to get back to the car. System mileage — "20 miles of trails" — is the total length of every path in the park added together, which might be twenty short spurs. 4,405 trails here are confirmed loops, and where a distance is stated on the trail's own listing, its park website, or repeatedly in runner reviews, we print it. Where it is not, we say "not reported" rather than invent a figure. You can filter the whole directory by distance band — under 2 miles, 2 to 5, 5 to 10, and 10+. Browse loop trails →

Are running trails open early in the morning or at night?

It varies more than people expect, and it is the detail that ruins the most runs. Plenty of greenways and multi-use paths are genuinely open 24 hours — 4,967 trails here are confirmed open around the clock. But a lot of state and county parks gate the lot at dusk and open at dawn, which means a 9pm run ends with your car locked inside the park. Lighting is a separate question again: dawn-to-dusk hours and lit paths are not the same thing. Every trail page here shows the posted hours, whether it is open 24 hours, and whether runners report lighting, so you can plan a 6am or a post-work run without guessing. Find lit trails for night runs →

How are the trails ranked?

By what runners say, not by who pays — no trail can buy a rank here, because nothing is for sale. Listings are ordered on Google rating weighted by review count, so a 4.7 across nine hundred reviews sits above a lone 5.0. The facts on each page come from the trail's own public listing, the park or land manager's website, and real reviews. One thing we deliberately do not ship: a generic Easy / Moderate / Hard rating. It is the loudest complaint about the big trail apps, and fairly — "moderate" tells you nothing about whether a trail suits your run. Concrete facts do: surface, loop distance, shade, hours.