Offroad GPS apps- (1 Viewer)

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Just started this recently, but the way I understand it is that you can have unlimited maps on your Avenza app on your mobile device as long as they are from the Avenza store (and you have enough memory available on your device). Unless you upgrade to the paid version of Avenza, you can only have three outside-sourced maps on your device at a time. But, you can download any number of GeoPDF maps and store them in a folder on Dropbox. Only three at a time can be on Avenza at any given time, but they are sitting there in Dropbox and you can close one then open another one as needed.
 
Just started this recently, but the way I understand it is that you can have unlimited maps on your Avenza app on your mobile device as long as they are from the Avenza store (and you have enough memory available on your device). Unless you upgrade to the paid version of Avenza, you can only have three outside-sourced maps on your device at a time. But, you can download any number of GeoPDF maps and store them in a folder on Dropbox. Only three at a time can be on Avenza at any given time, but they are sitting there in Dropbox and you can close one then open another one as needed.

Thanks for confirming my understanding. My phones have 128G and 64G, so I don't think I'll have a problem with just downloading their maps.
 
I have used Backcountry Navigator for about 4 years. It works well with all the usual features that I hardly use.
It used to be that you had a very good selection of maps to download, in the past year or so they have fewer and fewer free maps. If all your use will be in the Western US, I think those USCG and CALTopo type maps are still available.
I used to download that openstreet map open source stuff for road trips and forestry road 2D needs but that is not available anymore.
Depending on where my next trip is to, I may be looking for something new.
 
So I put all of my maps into one collection folder and and tested it on my drive home. looks like Avenza does not automatically connect to the next map you have on file and you must manually select the next map on the grid in the floating info box. It did however have them stitched together in the floating info box just not automatic on your main screen. Are the other apps the same like?
 
So I put all of my maps into one collection folder and and tested it on my drive home. looks like Avenza does not automatically connect to the next map you have on file and you must manually select the next map on the grid in the floating info box. It did however have them stitched together in the floating info box just not automatic on your main screen. Are the other apps the same like?

It definitely switches to the next map for me. It gets confused by the border and takes awhile for the blue dot to move past the border before switching.
 
So I put all of my maps into one collection folder and and tested it on my drive home. looks like Avenza does not automatically connect to the next map you have on file and you must manually select the next map on the grid in the floating info box. It did however have them stitched together in the floating info box just not automatic on your main screen. Are the other apps the same like?

See this on how to use GPS tracking across an entire Map Collections in Avenza.

GPS tracking across a map collection

and this one which has an explanation of the feature in more detail:

Moving Maps

It does later mention something about Avenza version 1.6 on Android. I'm on 2.0.2 version of Avenza. It's possible this feature doesn't work on iOS.
 
See this on how to use GPS tracking across an entire Map Collections in Avenza.

GPS tracking across a map collection

and this one which has an explanation of the feature in more detail:

Moving Maps

It does later mention something about Avenza version 1.6 on Android. I'm on 2.0.2 version of Avenza. It's possible this feature doesn't work on iOS.

Thanks. I did read through some of their help sections and this did help me set up the folders. I was not actively tracking and only allowing the default GPS dot to follow the map. I will try in the morning to turn on tracking mode and see if that changes the results. My version is 3.### and auto updates, so that shouldn't be an issue. Everything seems to be set up accordingly....:beer:
 
Headed out to Cruise Moab via the backcountry for a few days of exploration on the way there. Will load a "collection" of maps for the route and report back with some real world input on the results.
 
some real world input on the results.

They have very good coverage of the areas we were looking for in the Avenza Store downloadable maps (Kokopelli Trail area of western Colorado and around Moab, Utah). All the ones we used were very good quality with a lot of detail. The ones from BaseImage cost $0.99 each and the ones from USGS cost $2.99 each from the Avenza Store. The BaseImage maps cover an area of 4.5x7 miles and the USGS maps cover an area of 7.4x7.4 miles, both at 1:24,000 scale. The problem with doing a 150-mile backcountry trip like the Kokopelli Trail is that we would have needed 21 maps to cover the entire trip. We had only downloaded 4 BaseImage and 2 USGS maps as a trial of the app, so didn’t have full coverage.


In the Avenza Store, it is not very straightforward to see which quadrants you need to download to cover a specific area, so we found it easier to go to either baseimage.com or usgs.com to search for the map, make a note of the quadrant, then go back to Avenza to download it. If you download them for free at either of those websites, you are limited to the 3-map outside source imposed by the free version of Avenza. Also, for some reason, the data download on my phone didn’t use Wi-Fi even though it was connected, so we went over our data usage for the month when we downloaded the maps. So if you don’t have a lot of data on your phone plan, plan ahead and spread out your map downloads over more than one month.


Creating collections of adjacent maps in Avenza works great – the GPS move between maps works seamlessly.


We couldn’t find a way to create an actual route on Avenza, but you can export your waypoints to a .kml file then import them into Garmin’s Basecamp or Google Earth to create a route.
 
Is there a good place to get gpx files? Headed to Colorado next week.
 
Sorry, FREE maps wanted. I am cheap.
 
Sorry, FREE maps wanted. I am cheap.

Many of the older USGS topos are free on avenza. More recent topos (2012-2014) of california, also free. Also, many Forest service and BLM maps are free, e.g. MVUM maps
 

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