I’ve been an avid hiker of the Pacific Northwest for around a decade.
I’m also very bad at navigation.
Luckily, there’s a great alternative inOrganic Maps, which I’ve used on hikes for years now.
Even better, it works offline, and is very easy on your battery life.
I’ve used it for multiple days during a backpacking trip and didn’t even need to recharge.
(Airplane mode helps with this a lot.)
Organic Maps also has an excellent privacy policy: There’s no tracking and no adsperiod.
The mapping data comes fromOpen Street Maps, an open source project that allows anyone to contribute mapping data.
While a platform like this runs the risk of lacking data, people have evidently been contributing trails.
Even better, Organic Maps works perfectly without any kind of internet connection.
Using Organic Maps for hiking
Getting started is simple.
First, download the utility.
Tap the three-line button in the bottom-right corner, then chooseDownload Maps.
you’re free to download as many regions as you want.
I tend to keep all of Oregon and Washington on my phone, which takes up around 600 MB.
And there are a few hiker-specific features.
you might turn on elevation contour lines, which is something Google and Apple Maps don’t offer.
All this, combined with a much better data set for hiking, make it clearly superior for hikes.
Organic Maps isn’tjustfor hiking.
Until we see how Apples official Maps update performs, however, Im sticking with Organic Maps.
