Zwift currently places everyone on the same course, according to the monthly course schedule which is posted each month in the Zwift Support Hub. Eventually riders will be able to choose which course they ride on, but until then here’s an easy hack that lets you ride any course at any time.

You have a prefs.xml file in your Zwift user directory (which is in your Documents/Zwift directory on PC/Mac). Open this file in a text editor like Wordpad and simply add the following text to force Zwift to place you in Watopia, Richmond or London.

To ride Watopia, add: <WORLD>1</WORLD>
To ride Richmond, add: <WORLD>2</WORLD>
To ride London, add: <WORLD>3</WORLD>

This text should go just before the </ZWIFT> tag. (If you place it inside of a section like “<DEVICES>” then it will not work.)

Using Zwift iOS? Here’s how to accomplish this same hack on your iDevice.

Important: Do not insert bogus values into your preferences file!

There are no “hidden” courses, secret maps or back doors which can be found by inserting the wrong values into your prefs.xml file. If it’s invalid, Zwift will just behave unpredictably or even crash. Follow these instructions carefully and you’ll be safe!

Sample

Here is a sample prefs.xml file which forces Zwift to always place you in Watopia (added text is in red):

<ZWIFT>
  <DEVICES>
     <LASTCADENCEDEVICE>720996</LASTCADENCEDEVICE>
     <LASTPOWERDEVICE>720996</LASTPOWERDEVICE>
  </DEVICES>
  <CONFIG>
     <RICHMOND_BRANCH_PREFERENCE>0</RICHMOND_BRANCH_PREFERENCE>
     <BRANCH_PREFERENCE>4</BRANCH_PREFERENCE>
  </CONFIG>
  <WORKOUTS>
     <USE_ERG>1</USE_ERG>
  </WORKOUTS>
  <WORLD>1</WORLD>
</ZWIFT>

Note: special thanks for this hack go to to David A. Desrosiers who first discovered this option.