TRAIL APP REVIEW

Smartphone apps can be a trail lover’s best friend. They can help you discover new areas to explore, plan specific routes, assist you with navigation, provide additional measures of safety and enrich your overall enjoyment of your time spent on the trail. And you don’t need cell coverage to use them: most apps allow you to download and save maps or guides for offline accessibility and display your real-time GPS location even in airplane mode. Some have social or crowd-sourced components for sharing trip reports and trail descriptions and create interaction among users.

With the added benefit of relatively low price points — or free, in some cases — there’s almost no downside to using apps for your trail adventures, aside from choosing which are best for you and learning how to use them. Allow us to help. We’ve tested all of the following apps to provide a general overview of their features and most suitable uses.

ALLTRAILS

BEST FOR: Discovering the best trails in specific areas and seeing recent trail conditions

COST: Free version available. Pro Plan: $30/yr.

AllTrails was one of the earliest trail apps, and has become one of the most popular thanks to its ease of use and large community of contributors who provide updated trip reports and hike reviews. It’s especially helpful if you’re traveling to an unfamiliar area; you can look up a list of the top-rated routes in that region, then click on each