It’s an awkward article to write about your own product, so let’s do it properly: with the cases against as well as for.
The short version. It’s £97, paid once, for 47 lessons across six modules, with lifetime access and a 30-day money-back guarantee. The £27 Emergency Protocol Course and the free Digital Safety Net course are both included. Whether it’s worth it depends almost entirely on one thing: whether you’ll actually work through it.
Below is what you get, who it genuinely suits, who should not buy it, and how it compares with the alternatives.
What You Actually Get
Plainly, without the marketing.
47 lessons across six modules, taking you from what the symbols on a map mean through to navigating when you can’t see. Lessons combine video with a full written guide, so you can watch or read depending on what suits you.
Lifetime access, and every module added in future is included. There’s no subscription and no renewal.
The Emergency Protocol Course, which sells separately at £27, is included. So is the free Digital Safety Net course.
Email access to me. You can ask questions and get an answer from a qualified instructor rather than a support desk.
A 30-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked.
Who It’s Genuinely For
People who want to stop depending on the blue dot. If you can already follow a path perfectly well but couldn’t say where you are without your phone, this is precisely the gap it fills.
Nervous beginners. The whole thing is built for someone who finds the hills slightly intimidating and wants to be competent rather than impressive. That’s a deliberate choice and it’s unusual in this market.
People who learn better by revisiting things. A two-day course happens once. This sits there, and you can watch the relocation lesson the night before a walk that worries you. That’s the single biggest practical advantage it has.
People short on time or diary space. No booking six weeks out, no travel, no praying for weather.
Who Should Not Buy It
This is the more useful section, honestly.
Don’t buy it if you want a qualification. It doesn’t award one and it can’t. If you want assessed, certified competence, you want an in-person provider and an award scheme. Anyone selling you an online navigation certificate is selling you something that isn’t worth having.
Don’t buy it if you’re heading into winter conditions. Ice axe, crampons and avalanche judgement cannot be taught through a screen, and this course doesn’t try.
Don’t buy it if you know you won’t do it. This is the honest one. An online course you don’t work through is worse value than a weekend course you’re forced to turn up to, because nobody is expecting you. If you know that about yourself, spend the money on a day with an instructor instead.
Don’t buy it if you only ever walk waymarked paths in good weather and are happy doing so. That’s a perfectly legitimate way to enjoy the hills and you don’t need this.
Don’t buy it instead of going walking. It’s preparation, not a substitute. The learning happens on the hill; this shortens how long that takes and makes it a great deal less frightening.
Never Feel Lost Again: The Free UK Navigation & Safety Pack
Stop relying solely on a fragile phone battery. Download the exact tools a professional outdoor instructor uses to stay safe in the British hills.
Enter your email below to get instant access to:
- NEW: The Hike Planning & Safety Checklist: A comprehensive pre-walk checklist to ensure you never leave a critical item behind or rely purely on a smartphone.
- The Emergency Protocol Guide: A highly structured, zero panic system detailing exactly what to do if lost on Dartmoor/Scottish hills, including when and how to call Mountain Rescue.
- The OS Map & Navigation Cheat Sheet: A quick reference guide to decoding complex map symbols and plotting grid references when your mind goes blank.
- The Route Card Template: The exact, logic-driven framework I use to plan foolproof expeditions and identify safe escape routes before leaving the house.
- The Timing Crib Card: Never misjudge daylight again. Master the mathematics of measuring pacing distance and timings for steep ground.
What It Can’t Do
Three limits, stated plainly.
It can’t watch you. You can practise a subtly wrong technique for months without knowing. An instructor standing next to you spots it in ten minutes. That is the genuine, permanent advantage of in-person teaching and no online course closes it.
It can’t put you on a plateau in cloud. Reading about relocation and doing it when you’re cold and can’t see are different experiences.
It can’t make you go outside. Nothing can. The course gives you a system and the confidence to try it; the doing is yours.
If you’d like the fuller comparison, we’ve written about in-person versus online navigation training separately, and it’s genuinely even-handed about where in-person wins.
What It Costs, Compared With the Alternatives
Three realistic options if you want to learn navigation properly.
A two-day in-person course. Tuition in the UK typically runs £95 to £200. That’s the fee alone. Add travel, two nights somewhere and food, plus two fixed days out of your diary, and most people are realistically at £300 or more. You get expert attention on real ground, which is genuinely valuable, and you get it once. If the weather turns on the weekend you booked, that’s the weekend you got.
A subscription platform. Some good ones exist. The thing to check is that you keep paying, year after year, for a skill you’ll have learned in the first few months.
This course. £97, once. Lifetime access, future modules included, and both other courses bundled in. You pay once rather than every year.
None of that makes in-person worse. It buys something different and it’s worth having. But if you’re deciding what to spend first, the smaller amount that you keep is usually the better order.
The Risk, Honestly
The obvious worry with any online course is that you’ll buy it, not get on with it, and feel daft.
That’s what the 30-day money-back guarantee is for, and it’s no questions asked. Work through the first module or two, and if it isn’t for you, ask for your money back.
I’d rather that than have someone quietly regret it. A refund costs me £97. Someone telling their walking friends the course wasn’t worth it costs considerably more.
Where £10 of It Goes
£10 from every enrolment goes to mountain rescue services across the UK, donated quarterly.
That’s not a marketing line bolted on. The people who come and get you when a navigation error turns into a rescue are unpaid volunteers, and it seems reasonable that a course about not needing them should send something their way.
So, Is It Worth It?
If you want to stop being dependent on your phone, you’ll actually work through it, and you’d like to keep the material rather than rent it, then yes, comfortably, for £97.
If you want a qualification, you’re going into winter, or you know you won’t open it, then no. Spend the money on a day with an instructor instead, and you’ll get more from it.
That’s genuinely the whole answer.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much is the Bondringo Mountain Navigation Course?
It is £97, paid once. That includes lifetime access, all 47 lessons across six modules, every module added in future, the £27 Emergency Protocol Course, and the free Digital Safety Net course. There is no subscription and nothing further to pay. A 30-day money-back guarantee applies.
What is included in the course?
Forty-seven lessons across six modules covering map reading, compass skills, route planning and navigating in poor visibility, with video and written guides. Also included are the Emergency Protocol Course, the Digital Safety Net course, a resource vault, quizzes, and email access to a qualified instructor for questions.
Will it give me a navigation qualification?
No, and no online course can. Assessed awards such as those run by the National Navigation Award Scheme require in-person assessment of your performance outdoors through a registered provider. This course builds competence rather than certification. If a certificate is what you need, book with an award provider instead.
Is an online navigation course as good as an in-person one?
They do different jobs. In-person gives you a qualified instructor watching what you actually do and correcting habits you cannot see in yourself, which online cannot replicate. Online gives you the full system for a fraction of the cost, which you can revisit before every walk rather than experiencing once. Most people get furthest by learning online first and booking in-person later if they want assessment or winter skills.
What if the course is not right for me?
There is a 30-day money-back guarantee with no questions asked. The sensible approach is to work through the first module or two properly, which is enough to tell whether the teaching style suits you, and ask for a refund if it does not.
Do I need to buy the Emergency Protocol Course separately?
No. It sells on its own for £27, but it is included in the Mountain Navigation Course at no extra cost, along with the free Digital Safety Net course. If you have already bought the Emergency Protocol Course, you can upgrade by paying the difference rather than the full price.
Try the Free One First
If you’re not sure, don’t buy anything yet.
The free Digital Safety Net course is sixteen lessons and costs nothing. It’s the same teaching style, the same voice, and it covers genuinely useful ground: making your phone reliable, finding your position, and getting a grid reference. Work through that, and you’ll know within an evening whether the paid course is for you.
That’s a much better way to decide than reading an article by the person who made it.
And if you’ve already decided, the Mountain Navigation Course is here.
Any questions about whether it fits what you need? Ask in the comments below.
