A course (or World) is a 3D virtual world with geography and roads that make up multiple routes on Zwift. Zwift currently has 9 courses available for cycling or running. Zwift also has 2 courses that are used for events only and cannot be accessed unless attending an event scheduled on that course.
Sample Course Schedule-March 2022
Zwift opens access to Watopia and 2 other select courses on any given day for general access. They rotate between all the courses throughout the month but Watopia is always available. This is known as the course schedule and Zwift releases it every month. You can see the course schedule once you log into Zwift as shown here. You can also access the course schedule on Zwift Insider. According to Zwift, restricting access to all worlds at any time insures that there will be plenty of other cyclists or runners to share the road and enjoy social interaction.
In July 2023, Zwift released Climb Portals. These are now on a rotating Climb Portal schedule similar to the course schedule.
View ZWIFT COURSE SCHEDULE on Zwift Insider.
View ZWIFT CLIMB PORTAL SCHEDULE on Zwift Insider.
Switching Courses[]
When you log on to Zwift, you will be presented with the option to select a course and route. The current monthly course calendar is also shown so you can plan ahead to ride your favorite course.
While Zwift does limit access to Watopia and 2 other courses each day, it is possible to ride any course on any day. However, be aware that there will be few if any riders/runners on a course that is not the active course of the day.
Using the Meetup function on the companion app is probably the easiest method (especially for Apple. IOS or Android devices) to access any course anytime and doesn't require any file editing or additional third party tools. Just schedule a meetup for yourself and one other person, select any course, route, distance or duration and you'll be in that world for the duration of your meetup. The only downside of this method is that you must invite at least one other person to your meetup (whether they accept or not).
There are two other 'hacks' that can be used to override the active course world and cycle or run in other courses. These are best if you are using a PC or Mac.
The first simple hack is to edit a text file in your PC or Mac. Use notepad, wordpad or other simple text editor. If you've done a normal install on your computer, the file is called 'prefs.xml' and is usually located in /Documents/Zwift/prefs.xml. Simply edit the text file to add one line of text "<WORLD>1</WORLD>" directly below the <ZWIFT> tag. The number indicates the world you want to access. When you're done, simply remove that line of text and you'll be back on the normal course schedule. See the example below which would set your course to be Makuri Islands:
The lines of code for each course world are:
<WORLD>1</WORLD> for Watopia
<WORLD>2</WORLD> for Richmond
<WORLD>3</WORLD> for London
<WORLD>4</WORLD> for New York
<WORLD>5</WORLD> for Innsbruck
<WORLD>7</WORLD> for Yorkshire
<WORLD>9</WORLD> for Makuri Islands
<WORLD>10</WORLD> for France
<WORLD>11</WORLD> for Paris
<WORLD>13</WORLD> for Scotland
The second method of overriding the Zwift course schedule is to use a third party tool called 'Zwift Pref' by ZwiftHacks. This is an additional piece of software to augment Zwift by pre-selecting various preferences prior to logging into Zwift. It is available for PC and Mac only. Follow the instructions on ZwiftHacks for installation and usage.