Exploring Cyprus on foot has just got easier

The average person makes 35,000 decisions a day, and picking the right hiking destination might not be the most important but it can sometimes seem like the most difficult. It demands strategy: circular or linear? Seaside or mountains? An easy stroll in nature or a day-long pilgrimage?

If you enjoy exploring the great outdoors, chances are, your experience has been shaped by an online trail description here, a downloaded app there, and a friend’s recommendation on the side. Hiking enthusiasts often rely on guesswork, which has created the false impression that Cyprus has a limited number of trails.

Out of curiosity about the island’s nature, keen island-based hikers Vladimir Bugay and Ivan Agafonov created Monopatia – a comprehensive collection of all 183 official hiking routes in Cyprus organised in one free, no sign-up web platform.

“You could say it was love at first sight,” laughed entrepreneur Bugay, recalling how he and Agafonov first joined forces purely coincidentally. The two triathletes were acquaintances before they came across each other’s works: Bugay’s project Fragmata, which visualised Cyprus’ water reservoir data, and Agafonov’s recreational Notion database of hiking routes, which became the blueprint for Monopatia.

“It all started from a personal need actually. Over time it became increasingly difficult to find new trails,” said Bugay, who had been using Agafonov’s Notion database. “There is plenty of information available out there but it is all scattered”.

In the face of this, they decided to leverage each other’s skills and ideas, creating Monopatia. By tracing all the trails maintained by the forestry department, they have created a complete catalogue of all official routes.

“We are helping ourselves and we are helping others,” Bugay said, explaining why the product is and will remain free of charge. “It just doesn’t make sense to me to charge people.” He explained that in the IT community, giving back for the sake of contributing is standard practice.

The first version of Monopatia was developed in no more than two weeks, with a fair amount of routes already recorded on the previous database. The initial stages were smooth and quick, but what followed was a strenuous process of completing the catalogue.

“It seems easy on the surface, when in reality it took 100 hours for Ivan to manually trace all the routes himself,” Bugay said. All the information on the platform comes from his own efforts: visiting the trails, taking photos of the wooden signboards and tracing each route on Strava, ensuring accuracy. “It’s a lot of work,” he added, but the results were exceptional.

New routes were introduced, the database was expanding, and so was their awareness of the surprisingly vast amount of hiking spots in Cyprus. “I had the feeling that I visited the majority of the trails, but this turned out not to be the case,” Bugay said, the island proving to possess so much more than people think it does. Bugay has personally unlocked new gems that he intends to explore but is patiently “waiting for the heat to subside” to get out on the road.

Monopatia visualises all the factors that can determine the quality of a hike. Instead of a plain laundry list of routes, Bugay and Agafonov have created separate tools that facilitate the decision-making process. A simple download of a GPX file directly to the phone, and you are set to go. By signing in with an email or a Strava account, users can personalise their experience. The option to bookmark trails or mark them as completed is of great importance to those who like to plan ahead or those who want to keep track of their progress.

For that purpose, Monopatia also features a community section. Agafonov, having done much of the leg work and physically completed a substantial number of trails himself, currently holds first place on the leaderboard.

All trails are organised by theme. Kids, for instance, have their own section, with 15 route options under 7km, just enough to explore nature before reaching the point of wishing to do something else.

The main page of the website opens with a map of Cyprus marked by countless green, orange and red dots, each representing difficulty levels. A click on a dot reveals the trail, a small description, photos as well as all the metrics, such as its distance and elevation profile. Each trail also includes a review section where users can exchange useful tips and insights.

A highlight of the website is the European Long Distance Path E4, a continental hiking route connecting Cyprus to a wider hiking network that runs roughly 539km between Larnaca and Paphos, traversing mountains and reaching down to the sea. The completion of the E4’s Cyprus section has become a challenge in its own right, with Monopatia having dedicated a separate leaderboard to it.

“We are definitely not done,” Bugay said. Feedback from users means a mobile app is in the works. But neither Bugay nor Agafonov are in a hurry. “We do not want to overwhelm the project. We are not trying to compete with bigger apps”. The two founders have made their aim clear: “practicality and simplicity”. Thus far, Monopatia has been following that exact path.

Monopatia can be found at https://monopatia.info/.