Table of Contents
- The skill underneath the app
- Which app for which trail
- Hiking apps compared at a glance
- AllTrails: my planning and cross-check app
- Mapy.com: my free primary navigation app
- FarOut Guides: essential for the big US trails
- FarOut vs AllTrails: which one do you need?
- Gaia GPS: for off-trail and alpine
- Other free apps worth knowing
- Komoot vs AllTrails vs Mapy.com: which one for Europe?
- Offline maps: download them before you leave
- Garmin inReach Mini: my safety backup
- Common mistakes I see
- FAQ
- What is the best hiking app for thru-hiking?
- Do I need a paid hiking app for the GR11?
- Is FarOut or AllTrails better?
- Is AllTrails or Gaia GPS better?
- Is FarOut worth the money?
- What's the best free hiking app?
- Do I need a satellite communicator like the Garmin InReach Mini?
- What is the best hiking app for Europe?
- Can I use just one hiking app?
- Do I need a compass if I'm using a hiking app?
- Resources to build your nature-reading skills
- The bottom line
- Explore more
Updated September 2026.
Summer 2024, stage 13 of the GR11. I'm following red and white trail markers I'm sure are mine. They're not. They belong to the HRP, the high route that runs parallel through this section, unmarked half the time. I open Mapy.com. It tells me to walk down into the valley. I check AllTrails. It says keep going where I am. One of them is wrong.
That moment is why I wrote this post.
What follows are the best hiking apps I actually use across 2,500 km of long-distance trails in Europe and the Caribbean, the ones that earn their place on my phone. And the awareness that keeps you safe when the app gets it wrong.
The trails behind this guide
- GR11 (Transpirenaica), Spain: 850 km across the Spanish Pyrenees, Atlantic to Mediterranean. 50 days, mostly solo, partly with my dog Wingo. Summer 2024.
- GR131 across the Canary Islands. : traverses of Tenerife, Gran Canaria, and Fuerteventura. Volcanic terrain, desert sections, Atlantic views.
- GR7 Tarifa to Ronda. : southern Spain, olive groves, white villages, the Sierra de Grazalema.
- Fisherman's Trail (Rota Vicentina), Portugal: 230 km of southwest coast between São Torpes and Lagos.
- Ruta de la Reconquista (GR202), Picos de Europa: steep alpine terrain in northern Spain, historic pilgrim route.
- Waitukubuli National Trail, Dominica: 180 km of Caribbean jungle. We were the first hikers on the trail in 5 years after hurricane closures. Half of it was overgrown. Navigation was critical because we often had to find our own way where the marked path had disappeared.
Marked and unmarked. Coastal, alpine, volcanic, jungle. All of that informs what's below. My partner Jonatan, who has taught me much of this, has also walked the Pacific Crest Trail, the Appalachian Trail, and the GR11 in half the time I did it.
The skill underneath the app
An app helps. What keeps you safe is awareness. Reading the landscape, feeling when something is off, noticing that the sun has shifted from your left cheek to behind you when the trail was supposed to keep heading west. That kind of attention is built outside, slowly, by being out there.
People die on the GR11 most years. Hypothermia. Falls. Storms on exposed ridges. Usually the app wasn't the problem. They weren't prepared for what the mountain can throw at them.
After enough days outside you start navigating with your body before your phone. The trail doesn't match the landscape, something inside says stop. That signal is worth more than any app below. I'm not anti-tech, my apps and my Garmin saved decisions for me on the GR11 more than once. But they come second. My own eyes come first.
A compass and natural navigation
Apps die. Phones crack. Batteries flatten in the cold. I carry a tiny Suunto mini compass clipped to my pack strap. Weighs nothing, never needs charging. Only useful if you know how to use it though. Spend a weekend on a local hill learning to take a bearing and orient a map before you need it on a ridge. Courses and a book on natural navigation in the resources section below.
Paper maps
I don't always carry them. On the Fisherman's Trail I didn't bother, markers were good. On the GR11 I had Cicerone guidebook pages, two apps, and trail markers. On the HRP or anywhere truly remote, I'd carry detailed paper. The more serious the terrain, the more redundancy.
Planning your first multi-day hike? I wrote a field guide for exactly that, Your First Hike. Pre-order it now and the PDF lands in your inbox in November 2026, with my Excel trip planner included.
Which app for which trail
After 2,500+ km on European and Caribbean trails, this is how I split it:
- On European trails like the GR11, the GR10, the Fisherman's Trail and the Camino I use AllTrails Plus with Mapy.com.
- For the American long trails, the PCT, AT and CDT, FarOut is the standard app.
- Off-trail or alpine, like the HRP or the Haute Route, take Gaia GPS and a paper map.
- Solo or somewhere remote, carry a Garmin inReach Mini for safety.
- Not sure where to start? Try the free AllTrails trial and keep a free backup app.
Hiking apps compared at a glance
In this video I share how I navigate on trail, including getting lost in the clouds on stages 17 and 18 of the GR11.
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AllTrails: my planning and cross-check app
Mapy.com is my day-to-day app on trail. AllTrails is what I use to plan before a trail, to discover new hikes between thru-hikes, and to cross-check whenever I'm not sure of my location. Two apps with different map data keep me oriented, better than any one app doing everything.
What I rely on it for:
- 3D trail preview. See the steep pitches, ridges and valleys before you walk them. Makes elevation profiles tangible.
- Every stage of a long trail like the GR11 or the Fisherman's Trail has its own map. You can hike one section and still follow the whole route.
- Finding trails nearby is what I use most between big hikes. I land somewhere with the van or the boat, open the app and see what's local.
- Off-trail alerts vibrate when you drift, so you check your phone less.
- Community reviews show recent conditions, reroutes and closures.
The ghost-miles moment
Back to stage 13 (above). Mapy.com said walk down into the valley. AllTrails said I was on the right trail. AllTrails was right, the markers I was following belonged to the HRP, not the GR11. Sometimes two apps disagree. When they do, you stop, breathe, check the markers, and decide. I wrote more about that stretch in my GR11 trip diary for stages 12-16.
AllTrails has a free version and two paid tiers, Plus and Peak. I pay for premium, mostly for the comment section, where recent hikers say how it was. With the offline maps, that's all you need for a long trail.
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Mapy.com: my free primary navigation app
Czech-made, detailed for European trails, completely free. Mapy.com is the app I actually open first in the wild. It shows the full GR11 route with strong topographic detail, contour lines, and trails that don't always show up in AllTrails. Works beautifully offline once you've saved the region.
On the GR11 and the Fisherman's, this was the app I opened first when I needed to check something. I pair it with AllTrails because of the different map data. When they agree, I'm confident. When they disagree, I stop and figure out who's right before moving on.
Visit Mapy.com (previously Mapy.com, rebranded in 2025), or download from the App Store or Google Play.
FarOut Guides: essential for the big US trails
FarOut is the best app for thru-hiking the big US trails: PCT, Appalachian Trail, Continental Divide Trail. My partner Jonatan used it on the PCT and the AT and still talks about it.
FarOut is a digital trail guidebook. It has waypoints for water sources and whether they're flowing right now, for campsites, town services, resupply points and shelters. Other hikers comment on each waypoint in real time. So you know a spring is dry before you walk five miles to find out.
FarOut now covers more than the American trails, from the Camino de Santiago and the Tour du Mont Blanc to Hadrian's Wall Path, Laugavegur in Iceland and Australian trails like the Larapinta. In Europe I still don't need it. AllTrails and Mapy.com do the job there.
FarOut vs AllTrails: which one do you need?
People keep asking me this one, and it's almost the wrong question. They don't really compete. AllTrails is a navigation and discovery app: maps, tracking, wrong-turn alerts, more or less any trail on earth. FarOut is a guidebook that happens to live on your phone: waypoints for water, camps, resupply and town services, with live comments from the hikers a day ahead of you. On the PCT, Jonatan ran both. FarOut to know whether the next spring was flowing, AllTrails to see the terrain.
So the real question is whether FarOut covers your trail. If yes (the big US trails, the Camino routes, Tour du Mont Blanc, Laugavegur), get it, and add AllTrails if you also want proper maps. If no, which is still most of Europe, AllTrails Plus paired with free Mapy.com is the setup. Check FarOut's trail list here.
Gaia GPS: for off-trail and alpine
Gaia GPS is the pro tool. Backcountry hikers, search and rescue teams, overlanders swear by it. Layered topo maps, slope-angle shading, avalanche forecasts.
For a marked trail like the GR11 or the Fisherman's, Gaia is overkill. AllTrails is easier and does what most thru-hikers need. Gaia really earns its keep off-trail, plotting custom alpine routes, or when you need layered data like avalanche risk. If you're hiking the HRP or any winter high route, it's worth it.
Other free apps worth knowing
Maps.me
Mapy.com and Maps.me are the two I open most for the walking itself, and both work offline. Maps.me runs on OpenStreetMap data. It's less hiking-focused than Mapy.com, but I use it for general offline maps and for finding places to stay when I travel. Download Maps.me.
Wikiloc
Huge community-uploaded database of trails, strong for Europe. Great for finding lesser-known local routes. Free with a Pro version.
Komoot
Popular in Europe, especially for day hikes and cycling. Excellent route planning interface, more geared toward bikes than walking. Free tier gives you one offline region. I mention it because some readers prefer the interface.
Komoot or AllTrails? The comparison I get asked most from European readers. Komoot is stronger for planning point-to-point routes in Europe, especially the Alps and Germany where its community is biggest, and its turn-by-turn voice navigation is something AllTrails doesn't really do. AllTrails wins on trail reviews, recent condition reports and sheer library size worldwide. For a day hike in Bavaria: Komoot. For researching whether a trail is worth your week and cross-checking distances: AllTrails. For actually navigating a thru-hike in Spain, I still hand the job to Mapy.com and keep both of the others in the toolbox.
Komoot vs AllTrails vs Mapy.com: which one for Europe?
For marked long trails in Europe I use Mapy.com as my main free app and AllTrails Plus to plan and cross-check. Komoot is popular in Europe, but it suits cycling and day hikes better than a thru-hike. Wikiloc is great for lesser-known European routes, because the routes come from other hikers.
So if you only pick one free app for Europe, pick Mapy.com. If you want a second opinion with offline maps and wrong-turn alerts, add AllTrails Plus.
Offline maps: download them before you leave
This is the step that goes wrong most often. They assume they'll figure it out on trail or that cell signal will save them. Signal in the mountains is a lottery. Sometimes full 4G at 2800m. Sometimes nothing for three days. At 2500m with a storm rolling in, you want maps you can trust regardless.
Pre-trail offline map checklist
Do all of these at home, on wifi, at least a week before you start:
- Download the full trail in your primary app (AllTrails Plus, FarOut, or Gaia)
- Download a backup region in a free app (Mapy.com or Maps.me)
- If your trail crosses borders, download both countries. On the GR11, HRP and GR10 you dip in and out of France and Spain. Different cell networks, and sometimes the map in one country stops at the border.
- Load the official GPX file of your trail into at least one app
- Open the apps in airplane mode at home and confirm the maps actually load
- Zoom in on a specific stage. If tiles go blank, you haven't fully downloaded them
- Check phone storage (allow 1-3 GB for a full long-distance trail)
Why this matters. A hail storm rolled in fast on Jonatan once. Visibility dropped to a few metres. No landmarks, no markers, no horizon to orient against. He'd crossed into France without downloading the French side. He had to walk back. Miles of ghost miles. Wet, cold and lost is the worst combination on a mountain. Offline maps are safety gear, not a nice-to-have.
Load the GPX file into your apps
A GPX file is the digital version of your trail. Loaded into your apps it gives you the exact official route, useful when markers disappear or the trail splits. Where to find them:
- For the GR11, the GPX comes with the Cicerone GR11 e-book.
- For the Fisherman's Trail in Portugal, it's a free download from the official Rota Vicentina site.
- For other European GR trails, try the official trail organisation's site, Wikiloc or the relevant Cicerone guidebook.
- For the PCT, AT and CDT, it's included in your FarOut guide.
Garmin inReach Mini: my safety backup
Not an app, hardware, but it earns its own section because it called a dozen small decisions for me on the GR11. The Garmin InReach Mini is a satellite communicator the size of a matchbox.
- SOS button. connecting to international search and rescue.
- Live tracking. Mine sent my location every 2 hours on the GR11. My mum always knew where I was.
- Two-way satellite messaging. Text friends, family, or rescue without cell signal.
- Weather updates. from the device. The feature I used most.
One night that paid for the whole thing. I checked the weather via satellite. 30% chance of thunder where I was. Below a roof, not on a ridge. You can't get that info any other way at 2500m without signal. Worth every euro. Check the Garmin InReach Mini here.
GPS watches: useful off-trail, optional otherwise
I've never had one and I'm happy with that. I see people around me ruled by such devices. My phone in airplane mode is enough, and I like not having one more thing to charge. The one moment a GPS watch becomes worth it: poorly marked trails like the HRP, where pulling out your phone every ten minutes breaks the rhythm. A watch on your wrist with the GPX loaded lets you glance down and keep walking.
If you're going to get one, the Garmin Instinct 3 Solar is solid value. If you're a multi-sport ocean-and-mountain person, the Garmin Fenix 8 Solar is the rare watch that does both hiking and freediving seriously (full topo maps plus a depth sensor with apnea mode). On a budget, skip the watch for your first thru-hike and put that money toward a Garmin InReach instead.
One thing though, data obsession is its own problem. When every step becomes a metric, you stop noticing the light through the trees. Isn't connecting to nature what we're out here for in the first place?
Common mistakes I see
Predictable patterns after 2,500+ km and a lot of watching other hikers:
- Relying on one app only. Every app has glitches. Carry a backup that uses different map data.
- Not downloading offline maps before leaving. It's the most common failure point. “I'll do it on the trail with wifi in the village” doesn't work when the village has no wifi.
- Not testing in airplane mode. Do this at home. If the maps don't load offline, you haven't fully downloaded them.
- Blindly following a GPX track. GPX files can be outdated. Trails get rerouted. Use it as one input, not the only one.
- Cold drains batteries fast. Below 5°C my phone died roughly twice as fast. Keep it in an inside pocket close to your body. Power bank: I carry the Nitecore 10000mAh.
- Staring at the phone instead of the trail. You miss the views, miss the markers, twist an ankle. Airplane mode, check at breaks, look up.
- Skipping the skills part. No app replaces knowing how to read a map, interpret weather, and make a call. Invest a weekend in that before you need it.
- Trusting the trail blazes. The GR11 is marked with red and white stripes, but other local trails use the same marks. Cross-check.
Planning your first thru-hike?
My packing list has every item, every weight and every lesson I learned after hiking 850 km across the Pyrenees with Wingo.
FAQ
What is the best hiking app for thru-hiking?
On any modern long-distance trail your phone is your map, and two apps work everywhere: Mapy.com and AllTrails. On the American long trails, add FarOut. Off-trail or alpine, add Gaia GPS and a paper map.
Do I need a paid hiking app for the GR11?
Not strictly. Mapy.com is free and covers the full route with excellent detail. AllTrails Plus at around €20/year adds community reviews, wrong-turn alerts and offline maps from a different data source for cross-checking. Worth it for me on a 50-day hike, your call.
Is FarOut or AllTrails better?
They do different jobs. FarOut is a digital guidebook with live notes for specific long trails. AllTrails is for navigating and finding any trail. If FarOut covers your thru-hike, get it and add AllTrails for the maps. If it doesn't, AllTrails Plus with the free Mapy.com is the setup. The full comparison is in the table above.
Is AllTrails or Gaia GPS better?
AllTrails is the biggest user database, and the comments are where recent hikers tell you how it was this season. Gaia GPS is the deeper version for mountain navigation, with layered topo maps and offline downloads. It's worth it for serious terrain.
Is FarOut worth the money?
If you hike the PCT, AT or CDT, yes. It's the standard app for the American long trails. You don't need it in Europe. There AllTrails and Mapy.com do the job.
What's the best free hiking app?
Mapy.com for European trails. Maps.me for general offline navigation. Wikiloc for community-uploaded trails. All three are useful and cost nothing.
Do I need a satellite communicator like the Garmin InReach Mini?
For solo hikes in remote or alpine terrain, yes. It isn't required by law. What matters is that you can be found if you need help. I carry the Garmin inReach Mini on every long trail. Apps and my Garmin have saved decisions for me on trail more than once, but they're the second line, not the first.
What is the best hiking app for Europe?
Mapy.com, the app that used to be called Mapy.cz. It's free, and it's the best European offline topo app I've used. It navigated my GR11, GR131 and Fisherman's Trail kilometres without a single subscription. Komoot is excellent in Europe for route planning and elevation profiles.
Can I use just one hiking app?
You can, but I recommend two. They use different map data, and when they disagree you learn something. On my GR11 hike, cross-checking Mapy.com and AllTrails saved me from ghost miles more than once.
Do I need a compass if I'm using a hiking app?
On a well-marked thru-hike like the GR11 or Fisherman's, not strictly. But a lightweight compass like the Suunto mini weighs almost nothing and works when everything else fails. For alpine or off-trail, I'd always carry one. Learn the basics before you need it.
Resources to build your nature-reading skills
Courses on map and compass
- Basic Land Navigation: How to Find Your Way and Not Get Lost. 4+ hours of video plus two PDF books you can keep offline. Best value if you're aiming at alpine or HRP-style trails.
- Basic Compass Navigation by Dave Canterbury. Shorter, just the compass fundamentals. Good starting point.
A book on natural navigation
I love The Natural Navigator by Tristan Gooley. Reading nature itself to find your way, sun and stars, cloud formations, wind patterns, moss growth, the way trees lean. You won't navigate a full thru-hike on these alone, but they train your eye in ways apps never will.
The bottom line
For most thru-hikers on marked trails, AllTrails Plus paired with free Mapy.com is what you want. Add a Garmin InReach Mini if you're going solo or alpine. For off-trail, swap AllTrails for Gaia GPS. For the big US trails, get FarOut. Trail markers were here long before GPS. Your own attention is still the most reliable navigation tool you own.
The rest of my trail kit, from the inReach to the water filter, is on my travel resources page.
You may like reading: GR131 Canary Islands: which island to walk and how to plan it and GR131 Fuerteventura guide: stages, wild camps, where to stay.
You may like reading: Gifts for hikers from 2,500 km on foot, with my hiking gifts for her.
Stay wild.
With love, Suzanne
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All my thru-hiking storiesWatch on YouTube
Stay wild,
Suzanne
Disclaimer
I share my experiences, research and personal opinions on this blog to encourage a more conscious life close to nature. Some articles contain affiliate links. If you buy through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It helps support the time and work that goes into these guides. I only recommend tools, gear or services I've used myself and stand behind. All opinions remain my own.
