Most tourism trails launch with a map and a list of stops. That’s the floor, not the ceiling. The destinations seeing real engagement growth are treating their trails as participatory experiences: digital badge collections, check-in challenges, live leaderboards, and UGC campaigns that turn visitors into storytellers. This guide walks through 11 proven ways to build that participation layer into any trail you’re running.
What is a tourism trail?
A tourism trail is a curated route designed, typically by a destination marketing organization (DMO), to guide visitors through a destination’s best attractions, local businesses, and hidden gems. Done well, it’s also a data collection engine: every check-in tells you which businesses converted, which stops drove the most dwell time, and which audience segments showed up.
Types of tourism trails
Culinary trails showcase a region’s food scene, from taco trails to farm-to-table routes and local market crawls.
Booze trails run the spectrum from ale trails to wine trails and cocktail experiences. Visit Santa Rosa’s Beer Passport is a decade-old example of how a booze trail gets better with age: in 2026, upgrading to Seeker XP added digital badges, a live leaderboard, and a social activity feed, and more than 1,800 people joined in the first month alone.
On the wine trail side, Wines of the Santa Cruz Mountains built the SCM Wine Adventure Pass on Seeker XP as a $25 paid digital passport for the 2026 FIFA World Cup window, routing fans from Levi’s Stadium into the neighboring Santa Cruz Mountains AVA for self-guided tastings at 30+ participating wineries.
Art trails showcase local creative culture and generate organic shares on visual platforms.
The Beyond the Burrow Rabbit Challenge is a strong example: Visit Travelers Rest built a Seeker XP digital passport around six hand-painted rabbit sculptures spread across the Swamp Rabbit Trail corridor, giving visitors a structured reason to seek out each local artist’s work while earning a completion reward redeemable at participating downtown businesses.
Historic trails bring a destination’s past into the present. CTVets250 | Connecticut Veterans Foundation built the Connecticut Revolutionary War Trail on Seeker XP: a digital passport spanning 15 historic sites across the state, turning roadside markers that visitors used to drive past into a gamified, badge-earning journey through 250 years of American history. For destinations with this kind of story to tell, a Heritage Trail Pass is the right format: visitors scan a QR code at each marker, unlock the full story, and earn badges as they go.
Hudson County, New Jersey runs a similar model at county scale with HC Urban Adventures, layering 31 landmarks, from national monuments to neighborhood diners, into one GPS check-in passport across twelve municipalities.
AAHA! Virginia took the same format statewide with the AAHA! Virginia Heritage Challenge: a seven-month digital passport spanning 50+ Black history sites across four trail regions, where each check-in earns heritage points and progress toward 15 collectible badges.
Adventure, nature, wellness, eco, and cultural trails round out the spectrum. The City of Scottsdale built its 75th Anniversary Scavenger Hunt on Seeker XP as part of Celebrate 75, a yearlong Diamond Jubilee campaign marking 75 years of cityhood. The hunt maps 87 stops across the full city, from Pinnacle Peak Trailhead to the Scottsdale Food Bank, organized into six categories including Public Art, Historical Locations, and Parks and Preserves. Each stop earns between 50 and 150 points depending on the engagement it requires, and participants unlock eight digital badges as their total climbs toward 6,200 points.