Apps for iPhone and Android, and using these to plan routes.
Note: I started putting together a comparison of popular apps, but it's not complete.
Smartphones have GPS sensors, and there are a plethora of mapping apps designed to help you make the most of this feature.
Navigation apps offer a wide range of functions, so choosing the right app or apps requires deciding which specific functions you value most.
Some handy functions include:
- Predefined routes, which you can follow along with
- Finding the recommended route from your current location to a known landmark
- Planning a route from any location to any other location (custom route planning)
- Turn by turn voice navigation: "Turn left in 50 metres, continue down X street on to Y street, the railway station is on your left"
- Guidebook, showing local attractions, campsites, toilets, water sources, user reviews, etc
- Elevation graph, visualising the climbs and descents in a planned route. Note that parts of this data are usually interpolated (guessed).
- Augmented Reality (AR) features such as mountain identification.
- Location scouting, finding sneaky places to camp etc
- Re-routing, if the route isn't as you thought, or you miss a turn-off
- Recording, to review a freestyled route at the end of ride
- Tracking, to allow friends and family to follow your progress
- Onscreen controls, to limit the time it takes to interact with the map when you're multitasking (riding your bike)
- Night mode, to reduce distracting glare when you're navigating in darkness
- Waypoints, to save a good location and find your way back to it
- Authoring of a custom route on the fly, and editing of this
- Map overlays, such as Open Street Map, Open Cycle Map, terrain map, satellite map, NZ Topo map
- Data overlays, such as weather patterns, other routes, etc
- Import/Export of GPS routes and waypoints
- Sharing of waypoints and routes via GPS Exchange files (GPX)
- Gamification, such as ranking of your time compared to other users
- Taking or importing photos to appear on the map
- Scrubbing or changing of the selected route length, to better indicate where you are relative to hills or locations
- Writing diary entries for specific locations
- Updating the public database for crowd-sourced maps such as Open Cycle Map
- Offline map access / searching / navigation
And the list goes on...
In my experience, most navigation apps aren't targetted at the niche cycle touring market. As a result, no one app does everything that I want it to do, at least not well. There's also a big difference between routing up SH2, and navigating the highlands of east Nepal, so bear in this mind if you're thinking of heading overseas.
I own an iPhone SE and I personally use between 4 and 11 apps:
- MapOut - my main app, great for custom routing on the fly, but the map can be iffy.
- Google Maps - useful for turn-by-turn routing through cities and for satellite location scouting, but it can suggest routes unsuitable for loaded cyclists
- Rankers Camping NZ - useful for finding local campsites and reading reviews of them, though it's mostly targetting at the VanLife crowd
- TrackMyTour - useful for diarying trip photos on to a public map, to capture the highs and lows of your tour, retrace your footsteps, and to share your current or recent location with interested or concerned friends and family back home
- Great Rides - useful for following the flagship tourist routes along the Tour Aotearoa
- Maps.me - offline map, useful for turn by turn routing, but sometimes even less reliable than Google Maps, although you can submit map fixes
- Ride with GPS - useful for planning routes, finding routes recorded by others, elevation graph scrubbing, and live tracking of your current position, but most features require an expensive subscription
- Trailforks - semi-useful for finding mountain bike tracks to detour across
- NZ Covid Tracer - I should probably include this, since you may stray far from your usual bubble when touring, and the authorities would like to follow you wherever you go
- World Peaks - useful for getting your bearings by identifying the hills around you. You can then locate these hills on a traditional map to plan further adventures.
- TopoMaps+ - Looks great but needs a subscription to get the correct maps. Could be useful if you are ever going far off the beaten track
I used to own an Android phone. I forget my exact setup, but I did have the following installed:
- Google Maps (as above)
- Maps.me (as above)
- RideWithGPS (as above)
- Locus Pro, useful for managing waypoints and overlaying NZ Topo Maps to navigate back roads
- I start with a destination. Often this is a name mentioned in conversation or heard in passing, or a route or destination discussed in the media.
- I add some waypoints to MapOut, indicating where I want to go, but not how I'll get there.
- MapOut will show me the recommended route between my waypoints. That might not be the route that I end up taking, but it gives me a rough idea of distances, any impassable chunks of land, and any public transport connections that I need to consider. I double check this route by repeating the process in Google Maps.
- Then I switch back to MapOut and redraw the recommended route in there. This gives me an elevation graph and may also expose parts of the recommended route which are unsuitable for bicycles, e.g. main arteries, narrow roads, roundabouts etc.
- I then toggle between MapOut, Rankers Camping NZ and Google Maps, hunting for campsites and facilities, and any other information such as seasonal restrictions and the land owner's contact details.
- I map my findings into MapOut as waypoints. This way, I can limit my interactions and battery usage to one app out in the field.
- I plan a route through my waypoints and let someone know where I'm going and for how long.
- Once on the ride, I reserve the right to change up my plans based on new knowledge that I've attained on the ground. If necessary, I keep the person back home updated as I update my route.