Maps
A map built for walking.
Contours, hillshade, waymarked trails and the huts, shelters and springs that matter on foot, drawn from OpenStreetMap by MapTiler. The map style is bundled with the app, so a downloaded area renders fully offline.
Five styles
Topo, Terrain, Minimal, Satellite and Streets. Contours can stay on over satellite imagery. Topo has a true night palette after dark.
National mapping layers
Official maps for Great Britain (Ordnance Survey Outdoor, Road and Light), the United States (USGS), France (IGN), Spain, Switzerland (swisstopo), Germany (BKG), Austria (basemap.at), Norway (Kartverket) and the Netherlands (Kadaster), plus OpenTopoMap, as layers you switch on. They need a connection: offline downloads cover the Topo map only.
Overlays
Marked long-distance trails from Waymarked Trails. Open access land in England. Your saved places and your personal heatmap.
Points of interest
Choose what the map draws: huts and shelters, drinking water, campsites, toilets, car parks, viewpoints, waterfalls and caves, picnic sites, guideposts, mountain rescue, stations and bus stops, shops and lodging, summits. Each is a switch in the layers menu, and the choice is kept.
Bothies
A Bothies layer puts the Mountain Bothies Association's hundred-odd bothies on the map at any zoom, from the association's own list, so they can be found from the whole-country view; tap one for Walk here or Plan a route. The same set is listed under All bothies on the Shelters and bothies page, nearest first, with the association's notes on stalking-season and nesting closures and a link to each bothy's page.
Slope angle and aspect
Winter shading over any map: the ground banded by steepness from 27° up, in the colours winter walkers know, or coloured by the way it faces. Worked out from 30 m height data, so a guide rather than a survey, and drawn live from our server.
Offline areas
Download the Topo map for any area, or the corridor along a route, before you go; contours and hillshade are included, satellite imagery and the national layers are not. One area is free; with Pro, as many as you like. Settings → Offline Maps lists what you have and how much space it takes. How to prepare for a walk without signal.
Your own tile sources
Add a raster tile server of your own as a map layer.
Direction of travel
North up, or turned to face the way you are walking, with a compass on devices that have one.
Zoom that stays put
Plus and minus buttons beside the map for gloves and cold thumbs, and a zoom level that is still where you left it after the phone locks or the app relaunches.
Offline and online
What works without signal.
GPS positioning needs no mobile reception, so the walk itself never depends on a signal. Some things have to be fetched while you still have one.
| Feature | Without signal | Needs a connection | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recording a walk, ride or paddle | Yes | — | Anywhere with GPS |
| Following a saved or imported route | Yes | — | Anywhere |
| The map behind you | Downloaded Topo areas | Anything not downloaded; satellite and national layers always | Anywhere |
| NOAA nautical charts | In an area downloaded in US waters, if the chart was added | Anything not downloaded | US waters |
| Seamarks and launch points | — | Yes | Seamarks worldwide; launch points where OpenStreetMap has them |
| Spoken junction directions | Once fetched, on that route | The first time you follow the route | Great Britain |
| Planning a route or a paddle, Walk here, trails | — | Yes | Where OpenStreetMap has the paths or waterways |
| Place search, weather, live sharing | — | Yes | Anywhere |
| Summits, Flyover, Garmin, Strava | — | Yes | Summits: hill lists for Britain and Ireland, the Alps, the Pyrenees, Norway, Korea and the United States; peaks worldwide |
| Apple Watch recording | Yes, with the watch's GPS | — | Anywhere; navigation needs the phone in range |
Recording
One tap, then walk, ride or paddle.
Live stats
Distance, time and ascent on the map, on the lock screen as a Live Activity, and in a home-screen widget. Pace, speed, altitude, slope and more in a data screen you arrange yourself.
Keeps going
Records with the screen off, survives a restart, and notices when the walk or ride has ended, for example when you are in a car again.
Battery saver
A lower-power GPS profile for long days, trading a little track detail for time.
Waypoints and spots
Mark a spot while recording with a name, a kind, a note and a photo, and keep it on your map afterwards if you like.
Photos and notes
Photos on the map and on each hike, taken in the app or added from your library, a Photos tab grouped by walk, and a note on every hike. Free.
Siri
“Start a hike in Global Adventurer”, “Start a ride in Global Adventurer”, and “Stop my hike” or “Stop recording in Global Adventurer”, on iPhone and on the watch.
Every hike kept
Route, elevation profile, stats, waypoints and collections, in step across iPhone and iPad through your own iCloud once backup is switched on in Settings on each device.
Routes
Import, plan, follow, share.
The Route Store
The world's best-known hikes and every UK National Trail and Scottish Great Trail, each a GPX to follow with heights, figures and a route card. Every one of these long-distance routes is free: add it to your activities, then follow it, take its map offline or export it.
Import
GPX, KML, KMZ, GeoJSON, CSV and NMEA, from Files, Mail, AirDrop or any share sheet. Waypoint names, notes and symbols are kept. How to import a route.
Export
GPX, KML or KMZ with photos, CSV and GeoJSON. Saved places export as a GPX of waypoints. Open in Google Earth hands a hike straight to Google Earth, with a flyover tour inside that Google Earth Pro plays.
Plan by tapping
Tap points and the route is drawn on real paths: mountain paths, tracks and lanes, or the shortest way. Reverse it, start it from anywhere, or draw freehand. Routing uses OpenStreetMap through the BRouter service, so it depends on the paths being mapped; in remote country the line may take the long way round, and you can always draw it yourself. Hold the drawn line and drag it to bend the route; it is planned again on paths when you let go. On a computer, plan a walk, ride or paddle on this website with the same paths and figures, then send it to the app with one tap or download the GPX. The web planner can also keep a route off a spot or an area.
Avoid a path or an area
Press and hold on a road or path to keep the route off it, or draw an area to avoid, and the route is planned around it.
Stops along the way
Press and hold to add a named stop with a category to a planned route. While following, the app says how far the next stop is and lists the ones ahead.
Huts on the way
A planned route lists the huts, unstaffed huts and named shelters within 500 m of it, in order, with how far along each is met: DAV and SAC huts in the Alps, DNT and STF huts in Scandinavia, bothies at home, from OpenStreetMap.
Walk here
Search a place and walk to it from where you stand or from a point you choose, optionally along a waymarked trail. Distance, ascent and an estimated time before you set off. Trails include the National Cycle Network and named local routes such as the Egrets Way, from Waymarked Trails' hiking and cycling maps. Look Around, Apple's street-level imagery, and Google Street View are a tap away from any place, for a look at the car park or the start of the path before you set off. Via a trail lists the waymarked paths within reach grouped as National Trails, long-distance paths, regional and local walks and cycle routes, with a search box; only the stretch of the trail your walk needs is fetched, so even the European E9 is quick.
Follow
The next waypoint, distance left, an estimate of time and the climb to come, with an off-route warning and a word when you are back on the line. Hold the route's line while following and drag it, and the way ahead is planned again through that spot and back onto the route further along; the part already walked is kept. Meet a locked gate or a flooded path and one tap, Blocked ahead, plans round the next stretch. Under the stops ahead the app lists the water taps, springs, shelters, bothies and huts coming up on the route, with the distance to each.
Climbs and descents
The route's steep sections found automatically. A warning before each one, progress up the current climb, and what is still ahead, on the phone and on the watch.
Alpine club times
Route times by Naismith's rule at your own pace, or by the German and Austrian Alpine Clubs' DIN 33466, the rule the signposts in the Alps are timed by.
Multi-day plans
Mark where each day ends and the plan splits into days, with distance, ascent and hours for each.
Cycling
Rides as well as walks.
Record a ride
Cycling, road, gravel and mountain biking, e-bikes too. The same one tap on the phone or the watch, with speed, distance and ascent live and the ride kept with your hikes.
Plan on bike paths
Plan a ride on bike paths, quiet lanes, gravel or trails. The plan shows how much is paved and how much runs on signed cycle routes, with a riding time for the kind of riding you chose.
Cycle routes on the map
The National Cycle Network and other signed cycle networks as a layer over any map, and CyclOSM, a base map drawn for riders.
Rides in the Route Store
Sustrans classics and other long-distance rides, free, like the other long-distance routes: add one to your activities, then follow it, take its map offline or send it to your watch.
The same tools
Offline areas and route corridors, following with off-route warnings, live sharing and Emergency Location work the same on a ride, in kilometres or miles as you prefer.
Paddling
Kayak, canoe and paddleboard, too.
Record a paddle on iPhone or Apple Watch, plan one along the water, and switch on nautical charts and seamarks. Planning and seamarks need a connection; recording and a downloaded map area do not.
Record a paddle
Kayak, canoe or paddleboard, with the same one tap on the phone or the watch. Speed, average speed and top speed are shown in place of climb, and the paddle is kept with your hikes and rides. GPS positioning needs no mobile signal, so recording works anywhere with GPS.
Plan along the water
Choose Paddle in the planner, in the app or in your browser, then paddleboard, kayak or canoe. The line follows rivers and canals where OpenStreetMap has mapped them, crosses lakes and bays in a straight line and keeps to the coast at sea, with a time for your craft on still water and the locks and weirs on the way. It needs a connection; where the water can’t be followed, the line is straight between your points and the planner says so.
Follow it, with care
Follow a planned paddle on the map, with the next lock or weir announced as you come to it. On the water the line is only a guide: there are no turn directions or off-route warnings, and the planner knows nothing of tides, currents, wind or who may paddle where. Check them before you go.
Launch points
Slipways, put-ins and take-outs from OpenStreetMap, a switch on the map that comes on by itself when you plan or record a paddle. They need a connection, and OpenStreetMap cannot say that you may launch there: check that you are allowed.
Nautical charts and seamarks
NOAA’s nautical charts of US waters, with depths, channels, buoys and lights, are a map layer, offered when you paddle there; a map area you download in US waters keeps them too, to zoom 14 (less for a very large area), if you have added the chart. OpenSeaMap seamarks (buoys, lights, harbours and hazards) cover the world over any map and come on by themselves for a paddle. Volunteers map them, so check them against official charts; they need a connection and are not part of an offline download. The web planner has both.
On the wrist
Kayak, canoe and paddleboard record on Apple Watch on their own, with the watch’s GPS and heart rate, and are handed to the phone when they are next together.
Paddling routes
Day paddles from our own library, each with a launch point, a line along the water and the locks, weirs and portages on the way. Browse them on this website; in the app they are under Routes Near Me, where following one is part of Pro.
Directions
Spoken at the junction.
In Great Britain, following any route fetches its junction directions once from our routing server and keeps them with the hike. From then on they are shown in the route bar and spoken about 150 m before each turn and again at it, online or off. Outside Great Britain the app still speaks off-route, arrival and milestone notices, but not junctions.
Coordinates
Your own grid.
Grid systems
WGS84 latitude and longitude, UTM, MGRS, the British National Grid, the Irish Grid and the New Zealand Transverse Mercator grid, shown live on the map if you want them.
Position averaging
Stand still and collect several fixes for a more accurate waypoint, useful under trees or against a crag.
GPS accuracy
The current accuracy figure on the map, and a warning when a fix is too rough to trust.
Places
Your record, your heatmap.
Saved places
The bothy, the spring, the lay-by you always park in: named, categorised, with a note and a photo, on the map for every walk and one tap from a route to them.
Where I parked
Mark the car, or two cars, and see the distance and bearing back to it on the data screen.
Personal heatmap
Every hike on the device summed into a heat layer on the map, worked out on the phone and never uploaded.
Summits near you
The named tops around where you stand, nearest first, with height and which hill lists they are on. Open one on the map and walk or plan a route to it. Free; keeping the tally of the ones you reach is Pro. Star a summit as a favourite, or gather tops into lists of your own for a season or a trip, each with a route plannable to it from where you stand.
Shelters and bothies near you
The mountain huts, bothies, unstaffed huts, hostels, bunkhouses and named shelters within 10, 25 or 50 km of where you stand, nearest first, or the Mountain Bothies Association's bothies under All bothies, with height, sleeping capacity and fireplace where OpenStreetMap records them, a link to the hut's page, and Show on the map or Plan a route here for each.
Weather
For the hill you are on.
The forecast for where you are, from Apple Weather: current conditions, hourly, and the week ahead, with wind and gusts, visibility, and how much daylight is left. Celsius or Fahrenheit, your choice.
Safety
For the moment something goes wrong.
Emergency Location
Your coordinates and grid reference in large type, GPS accuracy, and a button that dials the local emergency number after you confirm.
Live location sharing
Share your position with a link that expires, and stop it whenever you like. Sharing your own position is free; group sharing, several walkers on one map, is part of Pro.
Daylight, heat and weather warnings
A warning before the light goes, a heat warning when the day feels 32° or more with humidity counted, and spoken notices for going off route, if you want them.
Apple Watch
Standalone recording, or a remote for the phone.
On its own
Start, pause and stop on the watch or with Siri. It records with its own GPS, saves heart rate with the workout, and hands the hike to the phone when they are next together.
With the phone
Live stats, a bearing arrow to the next waypoint while the phone follows a route, and an offline map picture of the route or the area around you, rendered by the phone. The phone does the navigating; the watch shows it. Setting up the watch.
Routes and settings
Browse your routes on the watch and ask the phone to follow one. Units and language follow the phone, or can be changed on the watch.
Climbs on the wrist
A page for the climb you are on: height gained, distance to the top, the average grade, and the climbs still to come.
Gear
Kit that adds up.
Items and packs
Your kit with weights, grouped into packs with their base weight. Import a LighterPack list if you keep one.
Maintenance log
A dated log on every item, with the distance walked since the last service worked out from the hikes the pack went on.
Share a pack
Export any pack as CSV.
Pro
By the year, or once for life.
Pro is an in-app purchase: a yearly subscription you can cancel at any time, or a single payment for life. In the UK that's £9.99 a year, or £49.99 once for life; elsewhere the App Store shows the price in your currency before you buy. Photos, notes and every long-distance route are free; Pro unlocks:
Day routes near you Pro
Our own day walks, rides and paddles near you, drawn along the paths and the water.
Unlimited offline maps Pro
Download as many areas as you like, for maps that work with no signal. One area is free.
Summits and hill lists Pro
Every summit your hikes reach, once each, with the first time you stood on it. Progress through the Wainwrights, the Munros, the Corbetts, the Hewitts and thirty more lists from the Database of British and Irish Hills, and beyond Britain the Colorado 14ers, New Hampshire's 4000-footers, the Adirondack 46, the US state highpoints, the Alpine 4000ers, the Pyrenean 3000ers, Norway's 2000-metre tops and Korea's 100 Famous Mountains, with a route plannable to any hill still to do. Tap a summit's name on the map to walk or plan to it.
Flyover Pro
Any hike flown over in 3D, on satellite imagery draped over real terrain, the line drawing itself as the camera follows the walk. Record it as a video to share. Needs a connection.
Health dashboard Pro
Resting and walking heart rate, weight and the hikes behind them, read from Apple Health on the device.
Avalanche danger Pro
Today's danger level, the avalanche problems with their aspects and altitudes, and the SAIS compass rose, on the Weather page and beside the Winter shading, wherever a national service forecasts: the Scottish Avalanche Information Service, varsom.no in Norway, SLF in Switzerland, the Alpine and Pyrenean services through the European Avalanche Warning Services (Austria, Bavaria, the Italian regions, Météo-France, Slovenia, Spain, Andorra, Sweden, Finland and Iceland), the US centres through the National Avalanche Center, and Avalanche Canada. Out of season the app says so rather than showing an old report. A summary with a link to the full report, not a substitute for reading it.
Garmin Connect Pro
Activities from your Garmin arrive in the app; planned routes go out to it.
Strava Pro
Activities from Strava come into the app, and finished hikes can be sent to Strava.
Group live sharing Pro
Several walkers on one map, for a group or a supervisor. Up to ten walkers; everyone who shares needs Pro, and anyone with the link can watch.
Health, Garmin and Strava
Optional, and off until you switch them on.
Apple Health
Save finished hikes as workouts with distance, energy, elevation and the route, and close your rings. Free. The dashboard that reads Health back is part of Pro.
Garmin Connect Pro
Sign in with Garmin’s own page. Our server relays activity files to your phone and deletes them once collected; planned routes go the other way. Connecting and disconnecting.
Strava Pro
Sign in with Strava’s own page. Our server fetches the activities you ask for and passes them straight to the app, keeping nothing; hikes you send go to Strava as GPX. Connecting and disconnecting.
iCloud
Switch on iCloud backup in Settings on each iPhone and iPad, and hikes, photos and places sync between them through your own iCloud, with deletions honoured on both.
Garmin and Garmin Connect are trademarks of Garmin Ltd. or its subsidiaries.
Languages
Nine, on the phone and on the watch.
English, Spanish, French, German, Norwegian, Swedish, Korean, Hebrew and Arabic, with right-to-left layout where it belongs. The language can be chosen in the app independently of the phone’s.
Devices
What it runs on.
iPhone and iPad on iOS or iPadOS 17 or later, and Apple Watch on watchOS 10 or later. The iPad version also runs on Macs with Apple silicon and on Apple Vision Pro. Recording needs a device with GPS; a Wi-Fi-only iPad can plan routes, view hikes and keep them in sync.