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updates

Gaia GPS is Improving Satellite Imagery: Saying Goodbye to Esri World Imagery

by Eric Evans February 24, 2025

written by Eric Evans

At Gaia GPS, our mission is to provide the best mapping tools for outdoor adventurers. To achieve this, we continuously evaluate and improve the map layers available in the app. As part of this effort, we will be deprecating the Esri World Imagery layer on March 4, 2025, to prioritize better, more up-to-date satellite imagery for all users.

Why is Esri World Imagery Being Removed?

While Esri World Imagery has been available in Gaia GPS for years, usage of this layer has remained low compared to other satellite options. Additionally, Esri has significantly increased their licensing costs, making the map layer an unsustainable option for us to continue offering. Rather than passing these costs onto our users, we are redirecting this budget toward securing best-in-class satellite imagery that provides better coverage, higher resolution, and more frequent updates for adventurers around the globe.

What’s Next for Satellite Imagery in Gaia GPS?

We know that high-quality satellite imagery is essential for trip planning, route finding, and backcountry navigation. We are currently in the discovery phase, evaluating multiple providers to ensure we deliver the best satellite imagery available.

Our focus is on improvements that could bring:

More Frequent Updates – Ensuring you have the latest imagery when planning your next adventure.
Higher Resolution Data – Offering clearer and more detailed views of the terrain.
Better Global Coverage – Expanding high-quality imagery to more regions worldwide.

How Will This Change Affect Users?

Starting on March 4, 2025, the Esri World Imagery layer will no longer be available in Gaia GPS. However, our other satellite layers remain available, including:

Satellite (Mapbox) – An alternative for high resolution aerial imagery. In many areas, Mapbox’s satellite imagery is on par with, or higher resolution, than the Esri layer.
Satellite with Labels – A versatile satellite imagery layer; providing roads, trails and POI’s labeled over Mapbox satellite imagery.
Satellite Topo – Another option, also based on Mapbox imagery, with labels for roads, trails, and POIs in addition to contour lines.
FreshSat – Recent – A great way to see very recent satellite imagery for any location; provides lower resolution than other satellite providers but is updated more frequently.
FreshSat – Cloud Free – Similar to FreshSat Recent but will prioritize visibility over recency.

If you’ve relied on Esri World Imagery in the past, we recommend exploring these existing satellite layers. We’ll keep the community updated as we finalize our plans for enhanced satellite imagery in Gaia GPS.

We are Committed to the Best Outdoor Mapping Experience

Removing a map layer is not a decision we take lightly, but this change allows us to invest in better mapping resources for the entire Gaia GPS community. Our team is committed to providing the best possible outdoor mapping experience, and we appreciate your support as we make these improvements.

Thank you for being a part of the Gaia GPS adventure. If you have any questions or feedback, we’d love to hear from you!

February 24, 2025

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 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

Android App Updates Gaia GPS iOS

Improved Statistics in Gaia GPS for iOS, Android and gaiagps.com

by Ashli Baldwin November 9, 2016

written by Ashli Baldwin

Gaia GPS now estimates track stats more accurately, and the stats match across the platform, on iOS, Android, and gaiagps.com.

We say “estimate” because raw GPS data includes precision errors that no amount of science and algorithms can totally correct, but co-founder Anna Johnson has done a lot of research, empirical analysis of data, and experimentation to make Gaia GPS stats estimates reflect reality as much as possible.

Improved and Expanded

In the past, Gaia GPS on iOS had the best statistics calculations, using the most sophisticated methods to throw out erroneous readings and filter streams of data. Users noticed discrepancies between stats reported on iOS and gaiagps.com, and even more so between stats on Android and gaiagps.com.

For this round of work, Anna both improved the stats on iOS, and then made the other parts of the platform calculate stats in the same way. This results in better and more consistent stats everywhere.

Update to Gaia GPS 10.9.2 for iOS, or version 6.6 for Android to get the improved algorithms. You can read the full release notes here: http://updates.gaiagps.com/

Gaia GPS Track Statistics Page on iOS, Android and gaiagps.com

Feedback Welcome

As noted above, and in our article on the why GPS recordings differ from reality, no algorithm will work perfectly for all data, and also some GPS chips work better than others. Some people will still find that they don’t agree with the stats as reported, when comparing them to values they find on maps, signs, or other GPS programs.

But regardless, we welcome feedback on Gaia GPS stats, and we can continue to analyze more data and find better methods to improve the stats. Email support@gaiagps.com with any questions or comments. If you’d like to report a stats discrepancy, include a link to your track on gaiagps.com.

November 9, 2016

Gaia GPS New Features New Maps

Gaia GPS for iOS version 10.7

by Ruthie Irvin July 7, 2016

written by Ruthie Irvin

Gaia GPS for iOS version 10.7 boasts several great fixes, and offers a better alternative default map source to display in place of an unavailable main source.

In the past, the MapQuest OpenStreetMap source displayed in lieu of an unavailable map selection. Now, the the in-house GaiaTopo, based on OSM data and stylized with the Gaia GPS user base in mind, acts as the default fallback source instead.

Other important updates include:

When you choose to remove a map source from the Layers list, a warning gets displayed if you have downloaded maps associated with it (because deleting a source deletes the downloads too).
Some map preview icons didn’t display properly in the past, but that got resolved in this version
Fixed folders sync issues that occurred if the app got backgrounded during a sync
Fixed an occasional Apple Watch crash that occurred when viewing track stats
Fixed issue causing waypoints with custom names to assume an auto-name designated by the app when edited or moved

We’d love to hear from you at support@gaiagps.com with your feedback about the new version, and if you have any feature requests, chime in on the Gaia GPS Community Forum and let other users vote and comment on your idea.

July 7, 2016

Gaia GPS New Features

New Profile Page on gaiagps.com

by Ashli Baldwin June 21, 2016

written by Ashli Baldwin

Along with new logo and icon design updates,the gaiagps.com profile page got a makeover. Now, when you login to gaiagps.com you get directed to your profile page instead of the public trips gallery.

Streamlined Navigation

The new design highlights the Recent Activity and Favorites tabs. To make room, the map display got removed.

You can find profile settings consolidated to the left under a single edit button.

Better Onboarding

The most notable difference— new web users will see a “Getting Started” checklist to take them through the process of setting up their account and syncing app data to the web. Once the steps get completed, the onboarding checklist goes away and the activities tab moves up.

You can expect additional updates to gaiagps.com in the coming months. Please send any feedback or suggestions about the website to support@gaiagps.com.

June 21, 2016

Company News Gaia GPS How-To New Features

New Year’s Web Update – Mass File, Delete, and Sync

by Aileen January 13, 2016

written by Aileen

Kicking off our web updates for 2016, we shipped a redesign for your data lists on gaiagps.com.

You can now mass-select a bunch of items in your saved tracks, waypoints, and other lists and do things like file the selection in folders, toggle the sync status, or delete items.

Also look out for the minor 10.4.2 release for iOS this week. It tweaks a couple of things from our last major (v10.4) release, which included auto-naming for tracks and waypoints, additional language support, a more user friendly map source menu and iPhone Main Menu, and polygons support for GaiaPro users.

This year, our staff and focus has grown, so you’ll see more changes to Gaia GPS and gaiagps.com than any year since we launched in 2009. And of course, we always love to hear from you at support@gaiagps.com.

January 13, 2016

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