If you're the kind of hiker who can spend hours just looking at maps, CalTopo will feel less like a tool and more like a playground. At its core, CalTopo lets you layer different map sources, tweak contour visibility, experiment with shading, and build a map that matches exactly how you see the terrain. The result isn't just functional - it's often beautiful, detailed, and deeply personal.
But CalTopo isn't only about aesthetics. Under the surface, it's a highly capable planning tool. Its route builder is precise and flexible, allowing you to sketch out anything from a quick local walk to a multi-day backcountry adventure with confidence. Whether you're analyzing elevation profiles or fine-tuning a route to avoid tricky terrain, it gives you a level of control that most hiking apps simply don't offer.
In practice, CalTopo shines across the full hiking workflow. Many users start on desktop, where the large screen makes it ideal for creating and customizing maps, layering data, and preparing routes. Those maps can then be printed for offline use or synced to your phone, where the mobile app becomes a reliable companion for navigation and track-following in the field.
This combination of flexibility and depth is exactly why CalTopo has earned a strong reputation beyond recreational hiking. It's widely used by professionals, including search and rescue (SAR) teams, who rely on its advanced mapping capabilities when precision and situational awareness really matter.
In short, CalTopo bridges the gap between map artistry and serious backcountry planning - and does both exceptionally well.
Wikiloc is one of the most popular community-driven hiking platforms and probably the most internationally diverse one, with trail contributions from hikers all over the world. It's particularly popular in Southern Europe and South America, and since most of my hikes take place in the Balkan peninsula, it's a natural choice for me - there's a healthy density of routes shared by local hikers. That community aspect really matters when you're looking for reliable trails in your region.
Like all the other community-driven hiking platforms, Wikiloc is built around outdoor routes and allows people to:
- record hikes, walks, and other outdoor activities
- upload those tracks to a shared platform
- gradually build a personal history of outdoor trips
- discover routes created by others
- follow existing trails in the field
Locus Map is a great outdoor navigation app that I've been playing with and enjoying lately. It is an extremely configurable and powerful app which simply can't be reviewed in one blog post, so I will cover some specific features as I explore them. In this first article about Locus Map I will talk about location sharing.
There are many reasons you might want to share your location, whether as a one-time manual update or through real-time tracking. For hikers, one of the most important reasons is when hiking alone - having someone know your whereabouts could be lifesaving in the event of an accident or emergency.
It is also important to be able to share some specific location on the map, for example a meeting point, a campsite or simply a waypoint, so that others can easily find it.
There are various different ways for location sharing and this app seems to cover them all.
Glympse is an application that specializes in real time location sharing. A free version is available with features that are sufficient for hikers.
Glympse is a fast, free, and simple way to temporarily share your real-time location with anyone. The tracking is based on GPS, is temporary and secure – and Glympse recipients don’t need to download an app to see the shared location - they will instead receive a link which they can open in any web browser, on their computer or mobile. The web page in the browser will display a map with approximately the last kilometer of the shared trail.
