Today a smartphone offers a wealth of information at your fingertips and there is no shortage of applications for hikers. We offer you a selection of the best GPS apps for hiking with the download link for iPhone or Android.
Hiking GPS Apps: Pros and Cons
Hiking GPS apps make it easy to navigate a route and quickly find the best route to your destination.
Another advantage, a hiking application records your route and allows you to analyze in detail the data of each of your walks such as duration, distance, number of meters traveled uphill and downhill, etc.
Some hiking GPS apps offer routes to follow in France and make it easy to find an idea for a hike around you.
The biggest disadvantages of hiking apps are the limited battery life of the smartphone and the availability of the GPS signal which may be lacking. For long hikes in unfamiliar terrain, it is recommended to bring a compass and a topographical map of the area.
Also, most GPS hiking apps are free to download but often contain in-app purchases to get features like offline maps.
Best 5 Hiking GPS Apps
- Visorando
The Visorando app is the best hiking GPS app. Thanks to the database of the site visorando.com, it offers hiking ideas everywhere in France. You can use this hiking gps app without internet.
This app has an integrated cartography with the IGN map at 1:25000 (accessible with subscription) or with the OpenStreetMap map (completely free).
It offers all the useful features for hikers or mountain bikers. It allows you to put hikes in favorites for access without a network, to save your routes (GPS track), to follow an existing hike or to import GPX tracks.
The Visorando GPS app remains very easy to use. It is accessible to all hikers even without technical knowledge.
- All Trails
The AllTrails hiking app has a good interface and integrates a road, satellite and topographic map. It is a very popular application on Google Play or in the Apple Store.
However, the topographic map installed by default in the AllTrails app does not provide much information about your hike.
It is quite easy to use and offers a large collection of hiking trails, GR trails, and topographic maps. This app allows you to find a route for a nice walk or discover trekking, mountain biking, hiking or horseback riding trails. It records the GPS track of your route.
Unfortunately, you have to subscribe to take advantage of offline maps. And it is quite complicated to import a GPX track with a hiking route.
3.Gaia GPS
Gaia GPS is an application that offers an impressive amount of data concerning your hikes such as speed graph, altitude graph, highest point, etc.
This app is also very easy to use and includes an excellent topographic map. It is quite simple to import a GPX track into the application to follow a hiking trail.
It provides topo maps of the whole world, road and aerial maps. It is the most complete application at this level with worldwide coverage. However, you must be connected to the internet to access these maps. Only the subscription version allows downloading offline maps.
4.Komoot
Komoot is a very successful hiking application in terms of graphic design and interface. It is very easy to use and includes several very useful features.
For example, it offers detailed voice navigation even on hiking trails. Komoot also calculates the optimal route to your destination. If you tap on a point on the map, the app will give you the best route to follow to that point. The Komoot app also keeps track of your journey.
In terms of mapping, this application is a bit limited. It only has a topo map that is not detailed enough. A subscription is required to benefit from offline maps and detailed navigation.
5.ViewRanger
ViewRanger is another hiking GPS app with great reviews. It offers thousands of circuits, detailed IGN maps or Skyline augmented reality to identify the elements around you, such as peaks, places, and lakes.
It offers the urban and rural map of OpenStreetMap and OpenCycleMap. In order to download maps onto their laptop and access the IGN France Geoportal services and IGN Belgium, you have to take out a subscription.
Otherwise ViewRanger allows you to create and follow courses. It is a dynamic navigation system that works thanks to the smartphone’s integrated GPS. The application thus displays your position, the distance and the estimated time to destination and the altitude.