About Wandermagazin

Wandermagazin

Wandermagazin is Germany's dedicated magazine for hiking and walking holidays, published by OutdoorWelten GmbH. Aimed at everyone who explores nature on foot — from Sunday strollers to long-distance trekkers — it combines tour inspiration, equipment tests, reportage and practical advice in print, digital and app formats. The magazine is best known to the wider public for "Deutschlands schönster Wanderweg", the annual public vote it organises to crown Germany's most beautiful hiking trail, an award that has become a fixture of the German outdoor calendar. With its sister title OutdoorWelten covering the broader outdoor lifestyle, Wandermagazin anchors a small publishing group devoted entirely to life outdoors.

Overview

Hiking is Germany's most popular nature sport: tens of millions of Germans walk regularly, the country's waymarked trail network runs to hundreds of thousands of kilometres, and certified premium trails draw visitors from across Europe. Wandermagazin serves this vast audience as its specialist medium. Its readers are active nature lovers of all ages who value health-conscious, sustainable leisure and spend their free time outdoors — a demographic prized by tourism boards, outdoor brands and regional destinations alike.

The magazine's editorial formula blends inspiration with utility. Each issue and each website update presents hiking destinations in Germany and across Europe — from low mountain ranges to Alpine summits, from riverside paths to themed cultural trails — with detailed route descriptions, maps and practical information. Equipment coverage helps readers choose boots, clothing, backpacks and accessories, with comparative tests of products such as headlamps and through-hike gear. Reportage and columns add narrative depth, covering everything from the physics of time passing faster on summits to portraits of individual trails and the people who maintain them.

The brand operates across print, web and app: the print magazine and its specials appear in the classic magazine format, the website publishes continuously updated tour tips and news, and the Wandermagazin app bundles the magazine, the sister title OutdoorWelten and all specials for offline reading at a yearly subscription price. This multi-channel presence reflects the way hikers plan today — discovering routes on the website, reading the magazine at home and carrying the app on the trail.

History

Wandermagazin emerged from Germany's long tradition of hiking journalism, a genre that stretches back to the 19th-century wander literature of the Alpine and rambling clubs. As hiking professionalised in the late 20th century — with certified premium trails, professional trail management and the rise of hiking tourism as an economic factor — the need grew for a modern consumer magazine devoted entirely to walking. Wandermagazin filled that gap, establishing itself as the country's dedicated hiking title.

A landmark in the magazine's history is the creation of "Deutschlands schönster Wanderweg", the public competition to elect Germany's most beautiful hiking trail. Organised by the magazine, the annual vote invites readers and the hiking public to choose winners in categories such as multi-day tours and day hikes. The award ceremony, held at hiking events such as the Globetrotter Wandertag, brings together trail managers, tourism officials and hiking enthusiasts, and the winning trails — such as the Druidensteig in the Westerwald, honoured in 2026 — gain nationwide publicity. The competition has become one of the German hiking scene's most recognised institutions, underlining the magazine's role not just as a reporter but as a shaper of the hiking landscape.

In recent years the brand has expanded digitally and internationally in scope. The website publishes daily tour inspiration and news, the app unites the print portfolio for mobile readers, and the sister magazine OutdoorWelten — positioned as the broader outdoor-lifestyle title covering trekking, gravel and mountain biking, water sports, climbing and adventure travel — complements Wandermagazin's hiking focus. Together the two titles form a publishing group devoted to outdoor life in all its facets.

Content and Sections

The heart of Wandermagazin's offering is its hiking destinations coverage. The "Wanderziele" section presents trails and regions in richly illustrated features: long-distance paths such as the 225-kilometre Weserbergland-Weg from Hann. Münden to Porta Westfalica, with its 13 mostly gentle stages through the Reinhardswald and Solling-Vogler nature parks; themed routes through wine country such as the Panoramaweg Taubertal; certified city trails like the Vilbelsteig near Frankfurt; and natural wonders from the Drachenschlucht gorges to the Dauner Maare volcanic lakes. Each portrait combines route description with cultural and natural history, practical tips and the editorial team's personal impressions.

Equipment and know-how form the second pillar. Comparative tests — headlamps for the hiking pack, through-hike kit from brands such as Jack Wolfskin — help readers buy wisely, while advice columns cover technique, safety, navigation and tour planning. The magazine's columnists add personality and curiosity, explaining for instance the physics behind time passing differently on summits. News items keep readers current on the outdoor industry, trail openings, events and tourism developments.

The "Deutschlands schönster Wanderweg" competition is both content and event: the nomination and voting phases generate months of editorial coverage, portraits of candidate trails and reader engagement, culminating in the award ceremony and the winners' features. Specials and the sister title OutdoorWelten extend the range into trekking, bikepacking, climbing and adventure travel for readers whose ambitions go beyond the day hike. Across all formats, the editorial tone is encouraging and expert — written by hikers for hikers, with the authority of a newsroom that walks its own routes.

Publisher and Organization

Wandermagazin is published by OutdoorWelten GmbH, the publishing company behind the brand's digital presence. The company operates Wandermagazin alongside its sister title OutdoorWelten, the outdoor-lifestyle magazine covering trekking, cycling, water sports, climbing and adventure travel, with the two brands sharing digital infrastructure including the joint magazine app. The publisher's portfolio also includes the Wandermagazin specials, thematic issues that dive deep into regions, topics or seasons.

The organisational model is that of a focused special-interest publisher: a compact editorial team of hiking and outdoor specialists produces the print magazine, the website and the app content, supported by freelance authors, photographers and route scouts who walk and document the featured trails. The "Deutschlands schönster Wanderweg" competition demonstrates the publisher's convening power, bringing together tourism boards, trail associations, outdoor retailers such as Globetrotter and the hiking public in a single annual event. Individual editorial staff names and the company's registered seat have not been publicly confirmed in the sources available for this profile.

Digital Presence

The digital home of the brand is wandermagazin.de, a continuously updated portal carrying the magazine's top topics, hiking destinations, equipment news and features. The site's structure serves both inspiration browsers and concrete planners: destination portraits with photography and route information, product news from the outdoor industry, and practical advice sit alongside each other, searchable and shareable. Social media channels extend the reach, distributing trail photography and tour tips to the hiking community.

The Wandermagazin app is the brand's mobile flagship: for a yearly subscription it bundles Wandermagazin, OutdoorWelten and all specials for offline reading, putting the full portfolio in hikers' pockets on the trail. The sister site outdoor-welten.de carries the broader outdoor-lifestyle content, cross-linked with the hiking portal. Through its website, app and social channels, Wandermagazin maintains a daily publishing rhythm that complements the print magazine's issues, serving a readership that discovers its next tour online and relives it in print. In a market where hiking tourism is both a mass pastime and a growing economic sector, the brand's multi-channel presence secures its position as the leading German-language medium for everyone who explores nature on foot.