Offline GPS is a vital feature for any maps app. You'll use it if you're exploring a foreign city and have data roaming turned off, or if you drive into a dead zone during a road trip. Here are the best free offline GPS apps for Android.
Android App: City Maps 2Go Pro or Premium Offline Maps for FREE
In some countries, the offline map even boasts features such as opening times and accepted payment methods of stores. Lastly, this is an app skiers should have. There's a paid plugin that shows route maps for many of the world's most popular resorts.
The maps are kept up-to-date by OpenStreetMap and are entirely open source. The developers behind the app have also made a promise to keep all maps and features free forever; there are no plans to introduce a pricing structure. MAPS.ME is ad-supported.
When you fire up the app for the first time, it will prompt you to download maps for offline usage. That's because there is no online map function here. Instead, the app offers more than 200 standalone individual maps to choose from, including 56 in Europe and 53 in the Americas.
HERE WeGo is another app that specializes in offline GPS navigation. It offers offline maps for more than 100 countries and they include directions, public transportation ticket prices, car-sharing prices, and train and bus timetables.
You can enjoy a free 14-day trial of the premium features. These include 3D maps and an audio navigation assistant. Once the trial expires, the app limits you to 2D offline maps and visual turn-by-turn directions.
These are some of the best offline maps for Android that will help you get where you're going, even without data. But we'll leave you with a quick word of warning: continuously running GPS apps in the background will quickly drain your battery.
Further, you can save offline maps of any city to get around without an internet connection. Google provides accurate maps in over 220 countries and territories. It also supports several languages, including English, Arabic, Catalan, Chinese (Hong Kong), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, etc.
Experience an exceptional navigation experience with this offline GPS map app. It has an easy-to-use interface and offers features like 3D offline maps, voice navigation, and CarPlay connectivity to help you reach your destination.
Here is another app with incredibly detailed maps covering the entire world. You can download any map you want and then access it offline without any restrictions. It offers turn-by-turn driving directions and voice instructions in 9 popular languages.
Make your travel stress-free with the Pocket Earth app. It gives you beautiful and fast Retina-quality interactive maps for more than 100,000 places. Moreover, you can personalize the maps to display the info that you want.
Travelers can find out tons of places of interest and save multi-stop itineraries for offline voice-guided navigation. Most importantly, it is the only offline app that lets you download maps of large areas, including entire countries.
If privacy is your priority, this offline navigation app for iOS does not track or profile you at all. It offers 2D, 3D, and Satellite views for maps of 233 countries and regions. Download them with ease for quick offline access.
Locus is the highest-rated navigation app for Android users. It has access to huge quantities of different maps (inc. terrain, cycling, hiking, skiing), either while you use data, or as in-app purchases for offline use. You can import custom maps, enjoy turn-by-turn voice navigation or understand places with the incorporated Wikipedia information. This app is really powerful!
This highly rated and powerful iOS app allows you to import and export GPX files, download maps (cities, regions, countries) for offline use, route, turn-by-turn navigate and track your trip. It incorporates 500,000 Wikipedia entries which are incredibly useful for finding points of interest while travelling.
Once Gaia Topo is downloaded, you will able to access the map even when your phone is completely offline and in airplane mode so you can locate yourself on the map, create routes, create and edit waypoints to mark important spots like campsites and water sources, and record tracks and follow them back.Gaia Topo is free to use on gaiagps.com and on your mobile device through the Gaia GPS app. The free version allows you to view the map, plan a route, and search for trails all while connected to the internet. However, you will need a Gaia GPS membership to be able to download maps for offline use.Try a Gaia GPS Premium Membership to tap into a limited number of maps within the Gaia GPS catalog. The Premium Membership unlocks the entire Gaia GPS map catalog, allowing you to layer and download multiple maps sources at one time. View the maps together to get a complete picture of the terrain you will encounter on your next adventure.
Google maps app help travelers and hikers plan their outdoor excursions ahead with their advanced precise location navigation feature, along with their ability to download maps or regions for offline access.
PeakVisor is available for free and with a pro premium subscription. While the free version covers most of the functionalities, the pro version will allow you to do all of that, offline with no cell service.
With the paid version of Gaia GPS, you'll get access to offline maps and Gaia's entire map catalog. Recently, Gaia GPS partnered with Outside+ for their new annual premium version. Gaia GPS's annual version includes additional maps for skiing, mountain biking, and backpacking, which is great for frequent hikers, backpackers, and backcountry trekkers.
However, the app's resourcefulness depends on whether AllTrails features trails for the place you live in or are visiting. Also, If you choose its basic membership, we recommend you use another app that allows maps to be accessed offline!
With that being said, if you don't mind paying the extra annual fees for AllTrails Pro, we do recommend it! The additional features allow you to download offline maps and keep updated on alerts are amazing and useful complementary tools to take with you on the go!
It is well-known for its fast, attractive graphics, powerful zoom, intuitive interface, turn-by-turn navigation, rich map data with the live search of addresses and places (along with other objects like gas stations or ATMs), offline usage (offline maps).
See photos, updated weather predictions and key information about each route and connect with other travelers through reviews and forums. Access the Pro version for $29.99 per year, which offers perks like offline maps and wrong turn alerts.
By GPS navigation we mean that the app can show your current location and direction on a map and supports import of GPS tracks. GPS tracks are very useful for hiking because it is easy to get them online and they make navigation during hikes easier. To learn more about GPS tracks check out our article What are GPS tracks and how to use them for hiking. When it comes to maps, we were not picky, but we did indeed consider offline maps and/or topographic maps as a benefit.
The Gaia GPS and Green Tracks apps have the best topographic maps. The A-GPS Tracker app does not support a topographic map. Only the Green Tracks app has free offline maps. Below we made a screenshot of our GPS track from Triglav hike rendered in each app so that you can assess the quality of maps yourself. We used a topographic map, if the app could provide it.
My favourite is ViewRanger (www.viewranger.com) which has free apps for Android and iOS with free, downloadable maps from Open Street Map, Open Cycle Map etc available worldwide. Premium maps available to purchase if you need them. Responsive and helpful support team too.
Wikiloc is also good to use while hiking, you can see elevation gain and loss..time recorded and in moving time..and if you follow a track you can see how may km remains to finish.I use Koomot only in Tirol as this is the region I got when I subscribed.I tried Locus (free version) but I found it complicated.Lately people keep suggesting ViewRanger, which has a lot of free maps to download.
Great overview,Looking forward to an update.Another one for the list: mapy.cz with free offline maps.And a question to the community:Do you know of any hiking or hiking app, that allows instantaneous voice note taking?I think it would be a killer feature to allow recording quick trail comments while hiking and exploring that are linked to the current GPS location.
Fortunately both services let you save maps offline for later use, though Google Maps is more upfront about it. Google Maps' Offline maps feature lets you select an area of the map, and download all the available data within it. Previously you could save individual routes, though this no longer appears to be the case.
While the base version of All Trails is free, they also offer a Pro version for $29.99 per year. AllTrails Pro allows you to download maps offline and sends you notifications if you stray off-trail. The Pro version also comes with 3D maps!
There is both a free and paid version of the Gaia GPS hiking app. For most day hikers, the free version is enough. In the free version, you can view both topographic and satellite maps and track your hike with cell service.
For backpackers or advanced hikers, I recommend the paid version. For only $39.99 per year, the paid version of Gaia GPS unlocks offline maps, including backpacking, off-road driving, backcountry skiing, and mountain biking maps.
Apple Maps matches Google Maps' business hours, ratings, and website links, but if you dive deep enough you'll discover that Google has more extensive maps. Google Maps not only covers more international locations, but it has awesome building interior maps, too. If you visit a city, Google Maps will likely have detailed internal maps (with multiple floors!) for malls, convention centers, museums, and other public-facing buildings. All that additional information means that Google Maps' suffers from a somewhat cluttered interface. 2ff7e9595c
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