Usefull apps for your hiking adventures
Over the years, we’ve discovered a few essential apps that accompany us on all our travels—perfect for planning hikes and navigating the trails. For planning, we rely on AllTrails, and for on-the-go navigation, we prefer MapsWithMe. Its offline functionality and GPS location tracking make it incredibly convenient for staying on course without needing a signal.
All Trails
This app is an excellent tool for discovering nearby hiking routes. You can explore options by using the map feature to zoom into a specific area or by entering a destination to generate a customizable list. Filters are available in both the map and list views, allowing you to refine your search based on difficulty, length, route type, suitability, attractions, and distance from either your current location or a chosen search point.
Ratings and Reviews
The app allows you to sort by rating and read reviews from fellow hikers. We’ve discovered that filtering for routes with ratings above 4 ensures an exceptional experience every time. Additionally, checking recent reviews often provides valuable insights into the current condition of the trail and other helpful details.
Difficulty
The app also categorizes trail difficulty – easy, moderate, or hard. While we’ve found that moderate trails are usually manageable for our family, the “hard” ones require a bit more research and planning. On occasion, we’ve tackled these tougher hikes with the kids and thoroughly enjoyed them, but we always approach them with the mindset of embracing a more adventurous experience. It’s worth mentioning that our daughters are quite accustomed to hiking, especially in mountainous terrain. By the time Alma was six, she could already handle a 20 km mountain hike in a single (albeit very long) day. That said, they would trek for hours in the mountains but wouldn’t walk the 500 meters home from kindergarten! So if you do have a child reluctant to walk anywhere at home this might not be a showstopper with regards to hiking when travelling.
Difficulty levels are determined by distance, elevation gain, and terrain.
For example, an easy trail would not have much elevation gain or would be a shorter distance. Easy trails can also be long flat trails such as rails-trails. A hard trail could have a significant amount of elevation gain and be long in distance or have some sort of terrain component that makes it challenging. Moderate is somewhere in between those.
Source: www.alltrails.com
Pictures
As a visual person, I love to quickly browse through photos to get a sense of whether a hike is right for me. If the images look breathtaking, I usually find the experience just as spectacular in real life.
Download route
Downloading the route for offline access is also possible, but only available in the paid version. Since we’ve been relying on the free version so far, we haven’t utilized this feature yet.
Many more features and benefits
The app offers many more features and benefits, but I won’t dive into all the details here. How you utilize it to maximize value is entirely up to you. I encourage you to give it a try and see if you find it as useful as we do. You can start with the free version and later decide if upgrading to the paid version for additional functionalities is right for you.
Finally; AllTrails isn’t limited to hiking; it also supports activities like mountain biking, skiing, and camping. However, I haven’t personally used it for anything other than hiking, so I can’t speak to how well it performs for these other activities.
Maps.me
Maps.me (formerly MapsWithMe) stands out as one of the best free apps for travelers. Unlike many other navigation tools, it provides detailed offline maps, making it an invaluable resource in remote areas where mobile signals are weak or unavailable.
Navigating offline
This app lets you download entire regions or countries, ensuring you have access to your maps anytime and anywhere, even in airplane mode. With offline GPS functionality, you can track your location and follow trails without needing data or a connection. It has saved us countless times when we could have easily gotten lost.
The maps are based on OpenStreetMap (OSM), a user-updated global map database, meaning many trails are contributed and maintained by fellow hikers – and we find that often this app includes trails which we do not find in any other maps we use.
Bookmarking points of interest
Additionally, Maps.me offers a convenient feature for bookmarking points of interest. This tool is incredibly handy for trip planning—allowing me to save attractions, potential dining spots, accommodations, and more with ease.
In short, whether you’re venturing through national parks, strolling along countryside trails, or navigating bustling city streets, Maps.me is a dependable, lightweight, and free navigation app for explorers and hikers of all kinds.
Navigation with limitations
While I truly appreciate this app and its features, I feel it’s important to mention one limitation. Although the app includes navigation functionality and can be used for driving, it often overlooks factors like one-way streets or the size of roads. Because of this, I would recommend relying on Google Maps (or your preferred navigation app) for driving directions.