Looking for the best GPS app for android

GAIA has an Android version iirc and allows for caching map sections ahead of time.

For myself I use a GPS handheld: standard replaceable batteries which means my phone is available for when I'm out of the backcountry.


www.gaiagps.com/apps/android/

eTA: Granted for day hiking and just exploring the tech possibilities a phone app is an affordable entry point. Bigger screen too. Lol going from my iPhone 6s Plus to my 60csx I can't help but squint at the teensy screen. For overall nav I prefer my map sheets, better than looking through that tiny keyhole of a GPS screen. To me anyway. 

for particular national parks there can also be specific map apps. Earthrover has converted some of the Tom Harrison maps to phone apps. Not detailed enough for on the ground navigation in my opinion but they're great for dreaming/planning what with their provided mileages between junctions etc. 

tomharrisonmaps.com

The NPS has also started getting into the app game. 

Map and compass are more reliable than any electronics. Here's hoping you don't forget them. Batteries can be wacky.

When I do use a GPS, I take a real one. I reviewed the Viewranger app and found it to be very like a real GPS, but the maps can fill up the memory of a phone quickly. And running the phone all day for tracking results in an incomplete track, if you don't have a spare phone battery or a charger cell to juice up the phone for the second, third, fourth, fifth days...

Forget using your phone for a GPS function because while a kind of neat app, it's still a gimmick that I wouldn't trust. Get a real GPS and maps loaded for your area plus mechanical compass and paper map.


The company puts up health and safety notices and last spring a flyer went up on safe camping. It mentioned GPS loaded with local maps and such but completely failed to mention a compass and paper maps. I brought that to the attention of the health manager and she said "No one uses those anymore!".
Uh... yup. Time to call out SAR....

I do nothing but off-trail hiking. I use Gaia (Have for years now). I use it combo with a map and compass. Mainly, I use it for coordinates. A map and compass may be "more reliable" but I have found there are times for a GPS (Whiteout conditions, fog, in deep woods). They both have their place. I have found my smartphone with Gaia to work very well out in the field. When I navigate, I use maps. I like being able to see miles around with full detail so I can plan my route as I use the natural landscape as a trail.

How many times have we heard of people dying in vehicles because they trusted the GPS was right and went where they shouldn't if they'd had any sense? The same can happen with a handheld.


The GPS navigation systems in aircraft can run $20,000 for a low-end system. $100K and up for commercial airlines. Just a tad bit more accurate than a $200 handheld.
I flew a small 4 seater that had a $125K system. I could easily takeoff and fly with it and did for instrument flight and supposedly even land although I never had the nerve to try landing.

Comes down to what you'd like to do with the stuff, like with a lot of hiking related gear. The reality is it's not either or: map reading skills are still necessary for using a gps display since once past the very basic units where you only get a digital readout of the utm coordinates what the gps units offer is a position caret ON a topographic map display. How you go from "here" to anywhere else is the very same mapping route decision making as on paper: just that you can zoom in and out.

Car gps units and smartphone map apps give detailed directions because cars and urban pedestrians are restricted to mappable roadways: hikers aren't and so as almosthere recounted a strictly has generated "direction" is just going to be the result of answering the basic question of in which compass direction another point is: not whether that suggested direction is passable to a hiker (rivers, cliffs, unfordable lakes).

Iirc some gps units running their own vector maps where trails ARE designated like roadways will route you along trail systems when that function is enabled, but that's a very specific set of units and circumstances. In general topographic interpretation is still a necessary part of gps navigation. Those benefit of hiker gps is as tigger noted the establishment of a current position is acheivsble under conditions which render a compass useless: restricted visibility such as dense cover, darkness, white outs and heavy ground fog amongst others: then with no visibility to distant known terrain features there's no using the compass to establish cross bearings. Making that map approaching.pointless (there's always some hope of "laying" the surrounding visible topography onto the map for a position fix, but that depends on being able to see enough terrain to get a feel for where you are which isn't happening in darkness, blizzards or fog.. In daylight in the Sierra and that's what I routinely use above timberline with a little help from my analog altimeter).

The other benefit of gps for those that like that sort of thing, like people who're entertained by their geotagged photos, is the ability to record the days hike track and once home upload it to a mapping program to see where you were, how far you travelled, elevation gain/loss, how long etc. like what we get off our bike computers. Paper maps and compasses don't offer that.

I took a map/compass navigation class last night at REI. Very helpful and cheap.
Honestly though, I think you can find unlimited resources online for navigation. Local classes are cool though cause you're able to hang out with like minded people and network a bit.