My Westweg – The Book

My Westweg · The English edition

The Westweg. Take it with you.

Enjoying the blog and want to read more? Or would you rather turn the pages of a book than scroll through a website? My Westweg brings the journey together in an English edition.

Across 176 pages, I take you from the first plans to the final day on the trail: preparing for the walk, all thirteen stages and the lessons I learned along the way. With original photographs, detailed topographic maps and elevation profiles.

A personal journey by Dr. Nico Riffel

Turn the page. Picture the trail. Start walking.

13stages through the Black Forest
45topographic map extracts
13elevation profiles to help you plan
176pages of stories and practical advice
Moss-covered rocks among the trees on my Westweg walk
From Pforzheim to Weil am Rhein. Thirteen days on foot.

From the first plans to the first blisters

One long walk.
A few lessons along the way.

I had bought the equipment and put in the training walks. The Westweg still had a few surprises in store: tired legs at the start, and a wish to keep walking by the end.

In the book, I share my journey with a daypack on my back and a hotel bed waiting each evening. There are views to enjoy, people met along the way and things I would do differently next time.

If you are thinking of setting off yourself, there are practical questions, too. What should go in the rucksack? How do you prepare? And what could safely have stayed at home?

New in the revised edition

Now you can see
where the story takes you.

Maps were the main request from readers of the first German edition. This edition includes topographic map extracts for all thirteen stages, showing paths, towns, terrain and the marked route.

  • 31 route mapsAt a scale of 1:50,000 in the paperback
  • 14 detail mapsAt a scale of 1:25,000 in the paperback
  • An elevation profile for each stageSee the climbs before you set off.
Explore the sample maps
Original book page 44: distance and elevation profile for the first stage Original book page 48: topographic detail map of Neuenbürg

Original book pages · click to enlarge

Try a few pages

Take a look inside.

Browse selected original pages: a taste of the first stage, maps and practical advice, all in the layout of the English paperback.

The sample shows the paperback layout. Kindle text and pagination adapt to your device and reading settings.

On paper or on screen

Your Westweg. Your edition.

EnglishPaperback
My Westweg – book cover

My Westweg

176 pages · Colour edition

A personal journey through the Black Forest. Thirteen stages, practical advice, topographic maps and elevation profiles.

Coming soon on Amazon

Read a sample

In preparation My Westweg · Kindle · English

Text and original photographs: © Dr. Nico Riffel. Journey: 2016 · Revised edition: 2026.

Maps and image credits

Topographic maps: data source LGL, www.lgl-bw.de, dl-de/by-2-0. Added Westweg routes: © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. Elevation profiles: Copernicus DEM GLO-30. Full credits appear at the end of the sample. The rucksack illustration was created with OpenAI ImageGen.

Download the accompanying map data (ZIP · ODbL)

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My Westweg

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Selected original pages · Some pages have been omitted.