The Lemon Fool

scottnsilky wrote:I don't have internet connection when I'm out and about, so I need to download a map app to be used offline. I have been using
maps.me until recently, but it has changed for some reason and I've gone off it. Are there any good alternatives to the ubiquitous Google?

Thanks for any suggestions,

dp

Google is just the best by miles in my experience if you’re driving. Just download the areas you need for offline usage.

For walking or hiking, other lemons have made lots of good suggestions.

I use Komoot for cycling (and it can also be used for walking or hiking) and like it but there may well be better options.

For walking, one of my favourite features of Viewranger was the fact you could use OpenCycleMap. Despite its name it showed far more walking paths than any other map, including OS. It is also worldwide.

Its absence from Outdooractive is one of my main frustrations with it.

I've started using the Locus Map app because it integrates OpenCycleMap. Not as full-featured as Viewranger but I'm getting on ok with it.

Scott.

swill453 wrote:
For walking, one of my favourite features of Viewranger was the fact you could use OpenCycleMap. Despite its name it showed far more walking paths than any other map, including OS. It is also worldwide.

Its absence from Outdooractive is one of my main frustrations with it.

I've started using the Locus Map app because it integrates OpenCycleMap. Not as full-featured as Viewranger but I'm getting on ok with it.

Thanks Scott - OpenCycleMap is one of my favourite free map resources too (as you say, it's fantastic for walking and hiking routes as well...), and I've just downloaded Locus Map to my Android Mobile and downloaded and installed the offline Open Cycle Map to it (in addition to the free local offline map offered by the app itself), and the whole process went very well indeed, so I'll be giving that option a go next time I'm out and about too.

Some links if anyone is interested -

Locus Map for Andoid - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=menion.android.locus&hl=en_GB&gl=US

Open Cycle Map download page for Europe areas - https://www.openandromaps.org/en/downloads/europe

Thanks again - that looks very useful.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

One other thing I wanted to mention in relation to planning walks and hikes, is to remember that the Google Maps 'StreetView' process, where you can drag the little yellow man onto the map and get a 3D view of streets, also works where users have uploaded 360-degree camera views on most of the established UK hiking trails as well.

Here's what Google Maps looks like when in 'yellow-man drag-mode' around the Helvellyn and Striding Edge area -



Each of the above blue dots represent an available 360-degree camera-view from that location, and here's a link to the 360-degree view looking back down Striding Edge that opens up when the yellow-man is dropped onto the little blue dot directly below it on the above snapshot -

https://goo.gl/maps/ubiTbQVBRhRah1Ut8

I think the above can be very helpful in the planning stage, both to get a good visual bearing on a proposed route, but also just to perhaps check on the quality of views on any high points that a hike might reach.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Itsallaguess wrote:Open Cycle Map download page for Europe areas - https://www.openandromaps.org/en/downloads/europe

I only just got round to looking at this. I can only find OpenStreetMap data on that page, not OpenCycleMap. Have I missed something?

Scott.

Nothing beats actual Ordnance Survey maps.

I live in a part of the country (West Somerset) where the perfect mobile phone coverage that everywhere else in England gets doesn't exist.

Whilst I know the roads where I travel pretty well, I always carry a compass if I'm on my motorbike in case I decide to go off piste down a C-road (and I have the OS map)

swill453 wrote:

Itsallaguess wrote:
Open Cycle Map download page for Europe areas - https://www.openandromaps.org/en/downloads/europe

I only just got round to looking at this. I can only find OpenStreetMap data on that page, not OpenCycleMap. Have I missed something?

Hmm...I just clicked on the button for Great Britain (including Northern Ireland), and then hit the 'Android Install on Locus Maps' button, and after it had downloaded and I'd activated it, the map looked to contain the expected cycle routes, and certainly has enough detail for my expected hiking and walking routes as well, so I assumed it was also integrating the OpenCycleMap details at that point.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess