What are Permanent Courses?
A Permanent Orienteering Course is a perfect way to get active, whilst enjoying the scenery and green spaces with your family.
- The challenge is to follow a map to discover checkpoints in the form of posts or plaques.
- The courses are in forests, heathlands, parks and green spaces across the UK.
- You can complete the courses at any time, and at your own pace.
- Courses vary in difficulty – Some for children and beginners, others more challenging.
If you have not used a permanent course before, the YouTube video above is designed to help you.
Getting Started
On the Go Orienteering web site you can find out more, discover courses near you and download maps. You will need to either print the map on your own printer or follow it on a smart phone.
Some other useful downloads available:
- Adventure Sport for All (Leaflet produced by British Orienteering)
- Orienteering Map Symbols (To help with interpreting the various symbols on the map)
- Control Card (To record your progress around the course)
If you are organising a large group activity, please download instructions on how to make use of a Permanent Orienteering course.
Control markers get damaged or go missing from time to time. When you have visited a POC we would be very interested in hearing about your experience. In particular we would would like to be made aware of any damaged or missing control points. [Fill in a feedback form] However, we may not able to remedy this quickly.
MapRun
MapRun is a form of Virtual Orienteering. It does not use markers. Instead the check points are identified by GPS signals on a smart phone. See our MapRun page for more information.
