Android

Easy to Read, Tiny to Download: The All New Gaia Topo

by Julien Friedland January 28, 2020

written by Julien Friedland

Today, we’re proud to announce the launch of one of our biggest projects yet. A combination of under-the-hood tech and visual design work, the all-new Gaia Topo combines world-class cartography with industry-leading download speeds and sizes.

Click here for instructions to access this map on iOS, the web, or in Android via the public beta.

World-Class Cartography

This project was driven by map-maker Lee France, who joined the Gaia GPS team this spring as the company’s first full-time cartographer. He brings over a decade of mapping experience to the new Gaia Topo, and early in his career, worked on some of the National Geographic Trails Illustrated Maps you can also access in Gaia GPS. You can read more about Lee’s background on the Gaia GPS team page.

The new Gaia Topo features a cleaner look and smarter labeling. That means it’s both easier to use and more beautiful to look at than ever before. We’ve tuned the map to the needs of many stripes of the outdoor adventurer. A new visual hierarchy system causes national and state parks, peaks, and campgrounds to appear first as you zoom in. We’ve also curated features and polished up the labeling system to improve information density. The result is a map that’s both more aesthetically pleasing and more efficient: It shows you exactly what you need at each zoom level without cluttering up your screen.

Water labels and contour line styling (before)

Road networks and main trails are now easier to find on the map. You’ll also find better hill-shading and toned-down landcover colors that don’t inhibit visibility.

Finally, we’ve improved contour line styling worldwide. Contour lines also appear sooner, making it easier to picture the terrain during large-scale route planning at low zoom levels. We also corrected a number of user-reported issues with the contour lines in various locations around the world.

Faster Downloads, Beautiful Rendering

With the new Gaia Topo, map downloads are faster and take up far less storage space, even though the new map has better data and styling.

To achieve that difference, we combed through all the data contained in Gaia Topo and eliminated redundant information, and did a neat trick to optimize how we packed each little map tile to be stored for offline use. This sort of optimization is something that defines R&D at Gaia GPS, and it’s what keeps our maps on the cutting edge of quality and download speed.

	Download size		Download speed
Area	Before update	After update	Before update	After update
Yellowstone National Park	63.8 MB	28.8 MB	1 min, 33 s	33 s
Washington State	1.34 GB	470.8 MB	28 min, 20 s	9 min, 21 s
Great Smoky Mountains National Park	42.2MB	22.8 MB	33 s	24 s
Adirondack Park	112.8 MB	45.2 MB	3 min, 19 s	1 min, 8 s
Texas	1.28 GB	538.2 MB	1 hr, 2 min	20 min, 14 s

Comprehensive Geographic Information

The new Gaia Topo is more thorough and information-rich than ever before, thanks to an expanded roster of data sources. Gaia Topo pulls official government records, crowd-sourced OpenStreetMap information, and existing Gaia GPS data into a living map that constantly updates as new information becomes available.

In addition to comprehensive hiking and camping information, the new Gaia Topo highlights features specific to cyclists, thru-hikers, skiers, anglers, and other more niche categories of adventurer. You’ll find new icons for bicycle parking, ferry routes, beaches, dog parks, hot springs, forest service gates, fishing access points, and backcountry ski huts, to name a few. You can see all new icons in the Gaia Topo map legend.

We’ve also added more ski runs and cross country ski trails, styled to indicate trail difficulty. One-way trails are now marked with small arrow icons.

POI interest icons before the update(left) and after the update (right) ; Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors

How to Get the New Gaia Topo

Gaia Topo is the main map source in Gaia GPS, available to all Gaia GPS users—with or without a paid membership.

The new Gaia Topo is now available on iOS, the web, and in the latest beta test version of Gaia GPS for Android. To access it:

iOS: download the latest version of the Gaia GPS app for iOS
Android: download the latest version of the Gaia GPS app on Google Play
gaiagps.com – visit gaiagps.com/map.

If you had previously downloaded maps, you’ll see a notification offering to let you update your downloads.

Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors

January 28, 2020

Android App Updates iOS New Maps

New ATV and Snowmobile Trail Overlays from Backroad Mapbooks

by Julien Friedland November 21, 2019

written by Julien Friedland

Snowmobile trails (left) and ATV trails (right)

Known for its remote wilderness, deep winters, and endless backroads, Canada offers a trail for every type of adventurer. Now, thanks to Backroad Mapbooks (BRMB), snowmobilers and ATVers can access over 150k miles of trail maps using Gaia GPS. Color-coded trails make it easy to distinguish which trails allow your vehicle for quick planning and navigating.

This addition to Gaia GPS’s growing catalog of Canada maps allows ATVers and snowmobilers to plan the best routes using a powerful collection of over 25 overlays.

ATV and Snowmobile Trail Overlays

The BRMB ATV Trails overlay includes 69,000 miles of trails across Canada for ATVs, OHVs (Off-Highway Vehicles), motorcycles, and four-wheel-drive vehicles. The BRMB Snowmobile Trails overlay includes 90,000 miles of snowmobile trails across Canada, from BC to Newfoundland.

Color-coded trails make it easy to distinguish from multi-use, ATV and snowmobile trails. Like all Gaia GPS overlays, the ATV and Snowmobile overlays have an adjustable transparency, according to your preference.

Adjust overlay transparency

Whether you’re exploring the powder fields of British Colombia or ATVing the remote Rocky Mountain Foothills of Alberta, download these two overlays to discover new trails, pinpoint your location, and always be prepared.

Access Gaia GPS’s Full Canada Catalog

The two new layers are part of Gaia GPS’s growing catalog of Canada and BRMB Adventure overlays including; Canada Topo, BRMB Base Layer, BRMB Multi-Use trails, Wildfires and Timber Harvest overlays. Be sure to try them out and stay tuned for more updates coming from Gaia GPS and BRMB soon.

You can also read more on Snowmobile and ATV Trails overlays on the BRMB blog.

November 21, 2019

Android App Updates Gaia GPS How-To Hunting iOS New Features Newsletter

Customize Paper Maps with Gaia GPS

by Julien Friedland October 15, 2019

written by Julien Friedland

Customize paper maps using the new print preview screen on gaiagps.com. Now you can quickly create and adjust selections before printing and be sure that your entire route is captured and easy to read. Additionally, maps can be exported as PDFs and will print in a higher resolution with a more reliable magnetic declination indicator.

Easily Adjust Map Orientation and Size

The new printing interface allows you to see an exact mock-up of the printed map, making it easy to fine-tune your preferred orientation, and size. New border parameters enable you to click and drag the map and zoom in and out to fit the selection of your customized paper map.

Orientation: Toggle between landscape and portrait to view which orientation best fits the map selection. Swapping between different views requires fewer adjustments and makes it easy to see which orientation will be easiest to read when you’re holding the map on route.

Sizing: Choose from six printing size options ranging from letter size (8.5×11) to A2 (16.5×24). Measurements for each map size appear when making a selection, for quick reference.

New Magnetic Declination Indicator

The magnetic declination indicator has been updated to consistently appear on printed maps, no matter how close to zero your magnetic declination is. This means you can always adjust your compass to increase your accuracy while navigating.

Better Resolution and Attribution

Printed maps will now print at a higher DPI and slightly better resolution. Attribution also appears in the bottom left corner of every map, clearly defining the source of the maps data.

Learn More

To access the new print preview screen, head over to the main map at gaiagps.com. To learn more about how to print your maps –including tips on layering and adding gridlines— visit the print maps online blog post or the help center.

October 15, 2019

Android App Updates Company News Gaia GPS How-To iOS New Features New Maps

New Map Overlay: Explore Canada Trails with Gaia GPS

by Corey Buhay February 6, 2019

written by Corey Buhay

Canada is home to 47 national parks and hundreds of provincial and territorial parks, all crossed and interconnected by world-class trails. Now, you can explore all of them with Gaia GPS.

Thanks to a new trails overlay from award-winning Canadian mapmaker Backroad Mapbooks (BRMB), the Gaia GPS map catalogue includes more detailed coverage of Canada than ever before. Whether you’re planning an expedition to the Arctic Circle, exploring the sky-splitting Canadian Rockies, or taking a day hike outside Montreal, the BRMB Canada Trails Overlay has you covered.

Color Coded for Route Planning at a Glance

The BRMB Canada Trails overlay includes over 70,000 miles of trail, including the country’s well-known behemoth, the 11,635-mile Trans-Canada Trail. All routes are color coded to indicate both their intended use and seasonal availability, making it easy to zero in on the destinations that are right for you.

Part of a Complete Package of Canada Maps

The addition of the BRMB Canada Trails overlay rounds out Gaia GPS’s existing rolodex of Canada maps. That collection includes ESRI World satellite imagery, precise contour line overlays (in both meters and feet), and the Canada Topo base map, in addition to the highly detailed Backroad Mapbooks Canada base map.

Adventurers in British Columbia can also access interactive overlays showing recent wildfires and timber cuts across the province for even more accurate route planning.

Available to Premium Members

The Backroad Mapbooks Trails overlay is available to Gaia GPS users with a Premium Membership both in the app and online at gaiagps.com. We recommend layering it atop the Backroad Mapbooks Canada base map for a complete and encyclopedic picture of the Canadian backcountry.

February 6, 2019

Android App Updates Featured Gaia GPS How-To iOS New Maps

New NatGeo Maps for Desolation Wilderness and Big Bend National Park

by Corey Buhay January 23, 2019

written by Corey Buhay

The National Geographic Trails Illustrated layer now covers both California’s Desolation Wilderness and Texas’s Big Bend National Park.

About Desolation Wilderness

Glaciers shaped the land of Desolation Wilderness thousands of years ago, leaving the granite peaks scarred and polished and dotted with alpine lakes. Located just west of Lake Tahoe in Northern California, Desolation Wilderness is about a 3.5 hours’ drive from San Francisco and 1.5 hours from Sacramento. The area is known for its waterfalls, open landscapes, and expansive Sierra views. For that reason, Desolation is one of the most popular wilderness areas in the United States.

About Big Bend National Park

The gem of West Texas, Big Bend National Park sits along the Mexican border, centered between El Paso and San Antonio. The park contains mountain hikes, greenery-floored canyons, dirt roads winding through rocky badlands, and cactus-ringed desert springs. It also contains a number of historical and cultural sites, including those of early settlers, miners, and Native Americans. Fossils and dinosaur bones have been found in the area, as well.

How to Use the NatGeo Illustrated Layer

Available with a Premium Membership, the NatGeo Illustrated layer lies within the United States section of the map manager. Simply click the plus sign to add the layer to your map, then download the area of your choice for offline use.

To further build out your itinerary, find hikes in either Desolation Wilderness or Big Bend National Park by using the Hike Search feature. Just tap the “Discover” tab in the app or “Hikes” in the menu on gaiagps.com to get started.

Want NatGeo maps but not a Premium member? Subscribe to Gaia GPS Premium or Premium with Outside+ here.

January 23, 2019

Android App Updates Company News Featured Gaia GPS iOS New Features

Introducing Hike Search: Easily Discover and Save Hikes Anywhere in the World

by Angela Crampton December 20, 2018

written by Angela Crampton

We’re thrilled to announce the release of a new, searchable, worldwide database of hiking routes across the Gaia GPS apps and website. The feature, called Hike Search, allows you to search through a continuously growing list of parks, forests, and trails to find the detailed information and maps of the best routes near you.

You may have already seen Hike Search in action if you’ve visited gaiagps.com recently, but now you can use it on the go by updating to the latest version of the Gaia GPS app.

Gaia GPS has always been a comprehensive tool for helping users find their way in the backcountry. With the release of Hike search, it’s now a tool for hike discovery, as well.

Download a Trail and Maps with One Tap

Tap the new Discover tab at the bottom of your screen to get started.

In the search bar, start typing the name of a place you want to explore. That can be a trail, national or state park, or nearby city. Filter your search by a hike’s ranking, time commitment, stars, difficulty, and length.

A Living, Breathing Catalog of Trails

The most exciting thing about Hike Search is that it’s a constantly evolving, living, breathing thing. All the hikes populating the database are sourced from Gaia GPS community data, and the more hikes Gaia GPS users record, the more known routes Hike Search will generate.

Gaia GPS Hike Search aggregates public tracks and information from the community and analyzes redundancies to determine which sections of trail are known to the outdoor community as hikes. As more people publish tracks and photos, Hike Search generates more known hikes, improving its own data and internal rankings for everything on the map.

Get Involved, Give Back to the Hiking Community

Anyone can edit pages for Parks, Cities, or Hikes—this means that crucial information is sourced directly from locals, or people who’ve experienced a hike or area firsthand. As more people add their edits and trips reports, we figure Hike Search will become the most accurate and up-to-date trail database in the world—a Wikipedia for hikes.

Read here for more information on how you can get involved.

You can also contribute to the project by marking your tracks to public to see your adventures influence the course of this new resource, or leave a Trip Report for hikes you’ve done.

We welcome your feedback. Send a note to support@gaiagps.com with any questions, or just to let us know what you think.

December 20, 2018

Android App Updates Featured Gaia GPS Hunting iOS New Features New Maps

Streamline Your Navigation with the Satellite Topo Base Map

by Corey Buhay December 13, 2018

written by Corey Buhay

Combine the best features of the Gaia Topo base map with ESRI world satellite imagery on a single, easy-to-use layer. Ideal for everything from planning backcountry ski tours to scouting off-trail routes up desert washes, the new Satellite Topo map promises to become Gaia GPS’s most versatile base map yet.

The seamless marriage of satellite imagery and clear contour lines gives backcountry skiers an accurate picture of avalanche slide paths, and lets backpackers and overlanders view tree cover and slope steepness for easier campsite scouting. The combination also illuminates terrain obstacles for both climbers and hikers, making it easier to find descents and reroutes, devise new linkups, and formulate emergency exit strategies on the fly. No matter what you do, the Satellite Topo map will leave you better informed and better prepared.

What is the Satellite Topo Map?

Satellite Topo is a base map designed to combine the popular way-finding features of Gaia Topo with a high-resolution picture of the landscape. To achieve that, Gaia GPS removed the plain background from Gaia Topo. We then replaced it with high-resolution imagery from ESRI, an international supplier of geographical information and satellite photography.

The result is a network of clearly marked roads and trails, labeled terrain features, and distinct contour lines (all sourced from OpenStreetMap data) on a background that perfectly resembles the world around you. Essentially, the combination streamlines your navigational workflow by bringing the map one step closer to your reality.

How to Use it

The Satellite Topo base map is available in two versions: meters and feet. It’s accessible to Premium Members on iOS and Android platforms as well as on gaiagps.com. To use it, follow these steps:

Open the Layers Menu and navigate to the Satellite Imagery catgory.
Click the plus sign next to the Satellite Topo map in your preferred unit of measurement to turn it on.
Slip the map beneath any of your favorite overlays in place of your existing base map.

December 13, 2018

Android App Updates Gaia GPS iOS

Plan Your Next Adventure with Enhanced Search Results

by Lucas Wojciechowski July 25, 2018

written by Lucas Wojciechowski

Gaia GPS search helps you find parks, forests, trails, cities, and more.

As a new software engineer on the Gaia GPS team, my first big project was to revamp the search experience. I’m excited to share some of the improvements we’ve made that you can use today on the web, iOS, and Android.

Tactical Search Results

Find what you’re looking for quickly, whether it’s down the street or across the continent.

Search results are now sorted by how “notable” each place is. Gaia GPS determines notability using data such as:

whether the place has a wikipedia page or website
what type of place it is (national parks are more notable than regional parks)
the population cities
the height of mountains

When I search for Yosemite from my home town, I now see “Yosemite National Park” rather than “Yosemite Marsh.”

Select the Optimal Search Result

Each result now displays the name of the park, forest, or wilderness area it is within. When I search for “waterfall,” I have a better sense of where each one is and what else is nearby.

Tap on a result to be taken to the location on the map with additional information like ‘Popular Hikes’ and options to ‘Send to app’ or ‘Download’.

Additional Search Improvements

You will no longer see duplicate search results for parks with multiple administrative zones.
Navigate search results using the keyboard. Type your query, press the down key to select a place, then press the enter key to learn more about the result.
Paste coordinates into the search field to jump to a specific spot on the map. Gaia GPS currently supports decimal latitude longitude, DMS latitude longitude, and UTM.

Gaia GPS welcomes feedback. Please contact support@gaiagps.com if you have ideas on how we can further improve search or other features.

July 25, 2018

female hiker using Gaia GPS on Android phone to navigate the trail.

Android App Updates Gaia GPS

Advanced Trail and Park Search in Gaia GPS Android Update v7.0.8

by Robyn Martin July 6, 2018

written by Robyn Martin

Hat tip this week to Andy Crampton, who joined Gaia GPS just a few weeks ago, and has already shipped a splendid Android update.

The new version (7.0.8) brings Gaia Search to Android, vastly improving search, and bringing Android in alignment with gaiagps.com and the iOS app. Andy also nailed a couple of the top bugs we’ve seen in logs and reports, so this release should be a big boon to almost everyone.

We’re expecting an accelerated ongoing Android development schedule now!

Search with Ease

Gaia GPS for Android now suggests locations as you search and marks results with descriptive icons for trails, peaks, forests, and more. Searches show a vastly improved list of possible points of interest, meticulously filtered to give more accurate suggestions. Fine-tune your selection with subtitles for each result denoting specific locale – designed to help when there are multiple results with the same name.

You may have already seen this new search capability in action on gaiagps.com or in Gaia GPS on iOS. Now that all three platforms are aligned expect to see continuous improvements to the search results you receive.

Tap a search suggestion to be taken there on the map. The app will automatically mark a temporary pin at the location.

Behind the Scenes

Among various usability improvements, this update relieves a sometimes slow or unresponsive ‘Saved’ menu — one of the most-common in-app freezes experienced by users. Now open saved tracks, waypoints, and routes without hesitation.

Also notable – GPX file imports are now more reliable, and we fixed an issue where the password reset button wouldn’t work.

Disable Analytics

We respect user privacy and now include an option to disable analytics. Shared analytics, diagnostics, and usage information allow us to make informed decisions about how to improve the app. You can opt-out of this setting in the app under Settings > Other.

Support and Feedback

Anyone can download or update to the latest version of Gaia GPS for free.If you like the update, spread the word by leaving a review.

Want to give more in-depth feedback? Send a note to support@gaiagps.com.

July 6, 2018

Android App Updates Gaia GPS

Snap-to-Trail Routing and Updated Statistics in Gaia GPS v6.6 for Android

by Ashli Baldwin November 15, 2016

written by Ashli Baldwin

Gaia GPS v6.6 for Android introduces Snap-to-Trail routing mode and includes a big improvement to how statistics get calculated for recorded tracks.

Automatically Route Along A Trail

Snap-to-Trail routing lets you plot a route along any trail using OpenStreetMap based maps like Gaia Topo and OpenHikingMap HD.

You can also plan your route using the Snap-to-Trail feature on gaiagps.com and seamlessly sync routes between all of your devices.

Choose between 4 different routing modes: hiking, cycling, driving, and manual. View a live elevation profile as you create your route and change your map layers during routing to help with planning. Easily toggle between Topo and Satellite Imagery, or other map sources.

Advanced Track Recording Statistics

Improved statistics for track recording gives you more accurate measurements and improves accuracy of statistics on the website, too. To read more about the statistics improvement, read this blog. Please note that statistics in the app may still vary slightly between the Android app and website, but they should be pretty close – the website and app use the same underlying data, but slightly different algorithms right now.

You can read the full release notes here: http://updates.gaiagps.com/android/android_6.6.0.html

Email us at support@gaiagps.com with any questions. If you have a feature request, consider posting your thoughts to the Gaia GPS Community Forums.

November 15, 2016

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