Good tires and adequate pressure and I haven’t had a single puncture in years. But I get your sentiment, and of course it’s not for everybody. Although for me, the number one best way to get away from cars is gravel and single trails. So that, and being in the woods, are the main reasons for my love of gravel riding.

Where I’m from, the Eurovelos actually live up to their grand concept and are fully developed and paved as far as I’ve seen (and therefore a bit boring for me), but I don’t have to go far (a day’s ride across a border) and our “pan-european cycle path” is actually “the perfectly good street we happened to have lying around here; have fun!”

I agree with your take on Osmand; a problem many big FOSS projects seem to share. I’m almost certain that there must be a way to properly penalise unpaved roads for routing with brouter, by the way. I’d check it out for you, but I truly dread the settings menus of those two apps…