A good hiking app makes all the difference nowadays. With rated and reviewed routes, highly detailed 3D maps, and top secret community insights; the right app can really make or break your hike.
Take my most recent trip to Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons National Park), for example. Now I’ve been to Wales quite a few times in my life, but I’m by no means an expert. Most of the time I’ll either visit somewhere I’m recommended by a friend, or I’ll do some research online and hope for the best. This time, however, I found myself dogsitting in an old rectory house just outside of Abergavenny (don’t ask).
Anyhow, I thought I’d try out a hiking app for a change, so I hopped on Komoot and had a browse of the local hiker’s recommendations. I pretty much clicked on one of the nearby ‘hiking highlights’, thought the pictures looked nice, and just went for it.
To my surprise, despite an intense downpour halfway through, it turned out to be my favourite hike in Wales so far. Specifically, it was a loop in the Craig Y Cilau Nature Reserve circling Eglwys Faen, a cave on Llangattock mountain. Including a mixture of muddy paths and steep ascents; the loop takes you alongside limestone escarpments, towards Eglwys Faen, and then back along moss-laden paths.
There’s even parts of the cave that you can walk straight into (see picture below, ignore facial expression). Note: there’s also parts of the cave that you shouldn’t enter without trained caving professionals.
What is the point of all this, I hear you ask…Well, the moral of the story is that I’d never have found this walk without using a hiking app. I’m sure it’s no secret to a local, or someone who’s actually from Wales. But to me, it felt like a hidden gem. Since then, I check the community recommendations on my hiking apps pretty much everywhere I go. You really never know what you’re going to find.
Beyond this, a good navigational app can be incredibly handy for those times when you’ve taken a wrong turn on the trail, or have misread your map coordinates, and need to quickly get your bearings. And while paper maps are important – essential some might say – a GPS app can provide an extra sense of comfort and protection in this sense.
There are, however, a lot of navigational apps to choose from, and some of these, to put it delicately, aren’t very good. To save you falling into the trap of a dud, we’ve pulled together a list of the best navigational apps available.
How to Choose a Hiking App for Navigation and Route Planning
Aside from route planning and navigating your way along hiking paths, navigational apps are also chock-a-block full of cool features to make your journeys that much smoother. These might include:
- Terrain information
- Mountain profiles
- Elevation levels
- Progress trackers
- Weather forecasts
- Voice navigation
- Live tracking
- Offline and saving functionalities
- Community sharing
- Points of interests along the route, and much more.
Depending on which features you think you’ll use the most, having these clever extras will be useful for some of us, but relatively useless for others.
Your choice of app will also inevitably depend on which outdoor activities you love the most and the whereabouts of each trip you make. For example, while PeakVisor mostly caters towards the mountaineering and snow sports communities, AllTrails tries to include as many different activities and types of user abilities as possible. Similarly, while Footpath Route Planner includes worldwide coverage, OS maps solely focuses on the UK.
In addition to this, if you’re going on a multi-week backpacking or bikepacking trip and are looking to cover multiple regions and areas, it’s not always handy to bring loads of physical OS maps with you, especially if you want to keep your pack weight down. So even if you’re a die-hard physical map lover, it might be worth checking out how much weight you could save by adding an app to your kit list.
(If you need help figuring out your kit list, check out our Outdoor 100 for the latest and greatest outdoor gear.)
