I’ve been an avid hiker of the Pacific Northwest for around a decade. I’m also very bad at navigation. Making matters worse, Google and Apple Maps are both basically useless if you’re on a hike: They don’t have data for most trails, and their offline functionality is generally limited to driving instructions, which isn’t useful if you’re hiking far from any cell phone towers.
Luckily, there’s a great alternative in Organic Maps, which I’ve used on hikes for years now. This free and open source application is available for iOS and Android, and I’m yet to walk on a trail it didn’t have data for. 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 ads—period.
The mapping data comes from Open 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. I’ve actively used Organic Maps in Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and even Croatia during a vacation last year. If I’m out on a trail, I can see exactly where I am in the context of the rest of the trail system, ask for turn-by-turn directions, and quickly find out how many miles I am from my car.
Even better, Organic Maps works perfectly without any kind of internet connection. Google and Apple Maps both offer a reduced version of their application when you’re offline: You can do the basics, but features like search and turn-by-turn directions only work in a limited way, if at all.
Using Organic Maps for hiking
Getting started is simple. First, download the application. You can start using it right away if you plan on having an active internet connection, but the real fun happens if you download the region you’re going to take a hike in. Tap the three-line button in the bottom-right corner, then choose Download Maps. You can 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.
Once you download the maps you need, it doesn’t really matter whether you have an internet connection or not: The application works perfectly either way. The search functionality, your saved locations, even turn-by-turn directions all function as needed—ideal for when you’re out on the trail.
Credit: Justin Pot
And there are a few hiker-specific features. You can turn on elevation contour lines, which is something Google and Apple Maps don’t offer. You will see the elevation change outlined when you ask for directions, which includes total up and down elevation with a chart that summarizes the gains and losses. This is great if you want to know how much more uphill hiking you need to endure (which becomes important to me quite often). All this, combined with a much better data set for hiking, make it clearly superior for hikes.
Organic Maps isn’t just for hiking. You can use the app for walking and driving directions, and it will work well enough. That said, it is missing real time traffic and transit data, however, so I usually stick to Apple Maps when I’m in a city. Still, I love having reliable maps when I’m miles from the closest cell tower, and the trail maps are second to none.
Now, Apple is adding hiking features to Apple Maps with iOS 18 this fall, so that could change things for hikers on iPhone. Until we see how Apple’s official Maps update performs, however, I’m sticking with Organic Maps.
