List of 5 free Hiking and Trail Apps
Main Highlights:
- Hiking and Trail Apps allow us to carry a plethora of information in the palm of our hands.
- The ability to navigate offline without service or Wi-Fi.
- The apps are a terrific way to find trails in your region and around the world.
Hiking is a terrific way to get some exercise, relieve stress, and appreciate nature while unplugging from the modern world. Spending time outside is one of the most beneficial things you can do for your mind and body, and there’s no better way to do so than by finding new paths to hike.
At the same time, we cannot overlook the vast array of technologies available to enhance your outdoor hiking or trailing experience.
Trail maps, navigation apps, and tracking applications with features like a camera-based rangefinder, GPS location navigator, and detailed hiking map assist you in the hike and participating in outdoor activities like a pro.
These hiking applications are fantastic tools that you can use on your smartphone to make your journey as fun as possible.
But, with so many hiking and trail applications on the market, how can you know which is the best to download?
In this post, we’ll go through the top hiking apps for the ultimate trip! And don’t worry, the majority of the stuff on our list are free applications (or at least they have a free version).
Let’s get started!
What Are the Benefits of Using a Hiking App?
Smartphones allow us to carry a plethora of information in the palm of our hands. Hiking is a hugely popular and healthy pastime for millions of people all over the world, therefore it’s only inevitable that hiking applications will become widespread.
Here are a few reasons why you should consider installing a hiking app right now:
Offline Navigation: The ability to navigate offline without service or Wi-Fi is one of the nicest features of hiking software. Some programs require you to download a trail map to use offline, whilst others have full GPS capabilities.
Organization: Many of the hiking apps on our list allow you to categorize your hikes by location, difficulty, completed treks, or even your own customized categories.
Discover: Hiking apps are a terrific way to find trails in your region and around the world! You may save trails that interest you to avoid a Saturday morning Google search for “great hikes around me.”
Safety: a trait that your loved ones will enjoy. Some of the hiking applications on our list will allow you to broadcast your location in real-time, so people at home won’t worry about you while you’re out trekking.
Performance Tracking: An app may not only log a trek for later use, but it can also share hiking performance.
AllTrails
AllTrails is the hiking app that is used most when it comes to planning hikes, finding new trails to explore, and tracking hikes.
AllTrails is one of the most popular hiking apps and has over 20 million users and 100,000 trails worldwide. You can search based on difficulty, length, elevation gain, user rating, proximity to where you are now, and route type. You can also search for pet-friendly trails, which are super useful if you’re hiking with dogs.
Being able to read user comments is super helpful most of the time. You can get recent updates on road conditions to the trailhead, an idea of how busy the trail is, whether the trail is still snowy, and more.
You can record your hike using the GPS app and also add a contact to which you can send updates about how the hike is going.
You can use a basic version of AllTrails for free, but I highly recommend getting AllTrails Pro if you’re someone who hikes quite a bit. It allows you to download maps to use offline and notifies you if you get off your planned route.
Available on: iOS & Android
Price: Free & Paid Versions (US$29.99/year)
WikiLoc
Wikiloc is one of the main hiking and adventure apps in southern Europe, with a community of over 10 million outdoor adventurers, 34 million trails, and 59 million trail pictures worldwide!
Unique to this app is the inclusion of road trip itineraries, long cycle touring trips, and other adventure types besides hiking, so that wherever you’re adventuring, you can find something new to do and see.
Plus, Wikiloc was among the first hiking apps to join the 1% for the Planet initiative, which helps build a sustainable future—something that I think all outdoors lovers can get behind!
Available on: iOS & Android
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Strava
Strava is used for tracking the amount of activity done and the speed at which you did it. You can track your hike within the Strava app, or connect it with your Apple Watch.
You can also export your route recorded in AllTrails or another hiking app and upload it to Strava when you return home.
At the end of the year, it’s nice to be able to see how much you’ve hiked and how your speed has changed over time! It’s great to use as a walking tracking app for free or for tracking whatever exercise you want.
Available on: iOS & Android
Price: Free and Paid versions (US$59.99/year)
Komoot
Komoot is another hiking app that works in a very similar way to All Trails, making it one of the best walk-tracking apps. You can find new places to explore, whether on foot or by bike.
One of the unique features of Komoot is the ability to create guides. With these guides, you can group together some of the best hiking trails and bike routes in the area to recommend to people. This makes it great if you’re new to an area and looking for some hiking inspiration apps!
Available on: iOS & Android
Price: Free and Paid Version (CA$76.99/year, 1st-year discount available)
Trailforks
If you’re a mountain biker, then you’ve likely come across Trailforks before.
Trailforks is renowned among mountain bikers, but they’ve recently been trying to include more hiking trails on their app too. You can download maps to work offline and use them as a planning tool too.
The routes are often color-graded so you can see the difficulty, and there’s plenty of information about whether this is also used by bikers, runners, or horseriders, which is handy to know!
If you’re someone who bikes as well as hikes and only gets one hiking app subscription, I’d recommend this one!
You can also get a subscription with an Outside+ membership, which gives you access to the magazine as well.
Available on: iOS and Android
Price: Limited free version; you’ll really need to pay (from C$36/year)