route creator

Get an intuitive, customizable mapping experience when you use the main map on gaiagps.com. We’ve spent the past year rebuilding the web map from scratch to bring you the fastest, most seamless experience while using gaiagps.com

The redesigned map offers intuitive route building, lightning-fast searching, and advanced map printing tools. Build and label routes faster with new waypoint and route options. Gather more details from the map by clicking points of interest to learn about hike metrics, campsite details and more.

Try it now by visiting the main map or read on to learn more.

Quickly Manage Maps and Find Legends

All map tools now live in one clean interface, making them easy to access, switch between, and view while looking at the map.

• Map controls (zoom, location, layers & overlays, print, waypoint, and create route) and Map Layers menu now appear on the left side of the map and won’t obscure your view.
• Quickly look up a map’s legend by clicking on the map source in the menu. The legend for each map layer will appear in the sidebar.
• Added support for maps in vector format when available. Vector maps provide smoother zooming, better resolution, and support for a richer (more interactive) experience in the future.
• Map Overlays (waypoints, public tracks, & grids) now appear at the top of the Map Layers menu instead of the bottom, so you can more quickly customize your view.

Interactive Map Details

Now you can click items directly on the map to get information about them. Learn about hikes, natural features, property boundaries, and other important landmarks.

• Click hiking trails to learn more about distance, elevation gain and estimated time.
• Discover campground information like fee requirements and the number of sites.
• Click a point of interest — like a trailhead or meeting point — then copy the URL and share with friends.
• Select natural features to learn about nearby hikes.
• Expand public and private land boundaries for ownership information.

Lightning Fast Search

The improved search bar makes finding hikes, parks, and points of interest blazing fast.

• Search results start appearing 10x faster.
• Results are more accurate and include a larger amount of hikes, points of interest, and parks than before
• You can also search and save coordinates in multiple formats directly from here.

Customize Your Waypoints

Now you can view the details for, and quickly customize any number of waypoints directly on the map when you click on it.

• Select a new or existing waypoint to make edits.
• Customize your waypoint name and description.
• Select from an expanded list of custom waypoint icons.

Route Planning Improvements

Many Gaia GPS users prefer to build their snap-to-trail routes on gaiagps.com before saving them to their phone for use in the field, so we’ve made online route planning faster and easier.

• Create out-and-back routes with overlapping route segments.
• Build snap-to-trail routes faster.
• Routes now have arrows indicating the direction of travel.
• More accurate elevation profile now appears on the bottom of the screen instead of the sidebar, and is opaque – preserving screen real-estate for route planning.

Customize, Adjust, and Export Printed Maps

The new print preview screen allows you to customize paper maps with more fine-tuning options.

• Quickly create and adjust selections before printing.
• Ensure the entire route is captured in the print preview screen.
• All maps include an improved magnetic declination indicator.
• Export as a PDF and print in a higher resolution.

The Gaia GPS map team of three engineers dedicated the last nine months to overhauling gaiagps.com, with more features coming soon, too. We’ll be able to implement new features and updates faster with the improvements that we’ve already made. Upcoming projects include: improving how you manage saved data on the map, how you search and find hikes, and how you work with the map menu.

The updates to the main map aim to improve every step of your online map browsing and building experience. Try it now by opening gaiagps.com, selecting points of interest, building a route and printing the route. Test out the map and let us know what you think.