Free three month subscription to IOS GAIA navigation service

[John E Davies]

GAIA is a wonderful resource for those who venture off pavement for any type of activity..... this article is a great review and at the bottom you will find a link to a free 90 day subscription.

 

Note, they say it is a Premium version, but when I redeemed it I got the Standard one. Still a nice deal, a good software “test drive”.

 

https://www.4xoverlandadventures.com/navigation-app-choice-gaia-gps/

 

John Davies

 

Spokane WA

[geO]

I use Gaia software for hiking. Mainly the topo maps and then send it to my gps watch. Great tool and it's free.  https://www.gaiagps.com

[KarenLukens]

There are lots of good mapping programs out there these days... but still free, Google Maps and Google Earth along with Bing Maps always see me clearly and as a miner, I use them daily just for ease and quickness of use... I just don't see the need for another mapping program, but I have used many different good programs and apps. Another good free site is landmatters - http://www.mylandmatters.org

 

Take the time and see all of the benefits of this site, learn their uses and enjoy them!

 

http://www.mylandmatters.org/3D/RH2.html

 

 

 

Reed

 

 

 

[John E Davies]

Reed, your comments are 100% valid - a pay for use app is not needed for many folks, but those free apps do usually depend on being able to stream the data, or you  have to spend the time and hassle before the trip caching it, which is a serious pain in the butt. For example, the very latest Google Terrain maps are stunning compared to the previous version, but you cannot download them like their road maps. If you could, then they would be very useful for off grid travel. When I travel on major highways in the middle of WA, other than the Interstates, I usually have major cellular dead zones. I need downloaded data.

 

GAIA free comes with only a crippled low detail topo base map with no road labels. In reality the only use for it is to provide additional side coverage where the higher level map coverage quits.

 

The standard membership gives you many different map types, most of which are downloadable. Overnight I downloaded 26 gb of NFS 2016 maps, which are kept current, unlike my huge outdated stack of paper ones. For me, this is huge...., since I am always exploring new forests and don’t like the hassle of buying new maps or driving without.

 

The premium version adds MUMs (NFS motor use info),  POIs, hunting boundaries, extra detail topo lines, etc, etc, plus the ability to layer up to five different maps, for example, POIs and Private Land Ownership info layered over USGS topo maps.

 

Creating a route is really easy online or on your device, it snaps to the road, track or trail, the labels are dynamic (change size and angle as you zoom and rotate) and all your waypoint, route and track data is automatically backed up to the Cloud. Plus it is syncced to any other devices.

 

If you really like the app you can get a five year membership and it is only $25 annually for the highest level - I think that is very reasonable.

 

I have been happily using Motion X GPS HD for many years. It has similar capabilities, but GAIA is way, WAY more complete, refined and elegant. I expect I will migrate all my old waypoints to this new app and stop using MotionX.

 

Again, most casual campers don’t need the full capabilities of GAIA, but a free subscription can show them if it can be useful. Free is always good.

 

John Davies

 

Spokane WA

 

 

[Rumline]

I used to use MotionX GPS HD on my 1st generation iPad until it died.  I switched to Android six years ago and have been using Backcountry Navigator, which I'm reasonably happy with, except that you have to pay a decent amount for overlays in a onesy-twosy fashion.  Like "Colorado MVUM" is $12 (don't quote me on the price I'm just giving an example...it's somewhere around that amount).  On the other hand it's a one-time fee and updates are free.

 

I'd never heard of Gaia until this thread and at first thought it was for iStuff only.  But they also have it for Android.  I'll have to check it out.

[Overland]

We use gaia for hiking more than driving, but it's proven worth the small cost.  You just have to remember to download the maps ahead of time, which makes it less useful for us when driving since we tend to plan day to day.  Or hour by hour.  Boer maak 'n plan.

[KarenLukens]

I have a good map system and a lot of the new maps eliminate roads that are still there and being used for whatever the usfw reasoning is... Just hit your search area on landmatters and then hit the "i" or info tab and click on the map to get a list of all of the maps available for .PDF download. I popped this one for you. Landmatters has a ton of books and info in the library also.

 

https://geonames.usgs.gov/apex/f?p=262:18:0::NO:RP:P18_STATE%2CP18_SCALE%2CP18_MAP_NAME%2CP18_MAP_TYPE:WA,24000,42545,Historical

 

Just click the "download topo maps" button like here.

 

http://www.mylandmatters.org/Maps/Topo/GetMap

 

Then zoom in, click the i, then the list opens. I have terabytes of maps also! Haha

 

 

[John E Davies]

I have a good map system and a lot of the new maps eliminate roads that are still there and being used for whatever the usfw reasoning is… Just hit your search area on landmatters and then hit the “i” or info tab and click on the map to get a list of all of the maps available for .PDF download. I popped this one for you. Landmatters has a ton of books and info in the library also. https://geonames.usgs.gov/apex/f?p=262:18:0::NO:RP:P18_STATE%2CP18_SCALE%2CP18_MAP_NAME%2CP18_MAP_TYPE:WA,24000,42545,Historical Just click the “download topo maps” button like here. http://www.mylandmatters.org/Maps/Topo/GetMap Then zoom in, click the i, then the list opens. I have terabytes of maps also! Haha

Cool, but it is a bit slow and clunky. Is there any way to generate and download detailed maps of a region, say in a 1 GB batch?

 

They are standard "image" type maps. The pdfs are quite usable, and look just like the paper NFS maps. But they are raster data, not vector.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKdRiHezuk0

 

John Davies

 

Spokane WA