How To Download Topo Maps To Your Android Phone

Take you e'er grabbed your backpack and rushed out the door only to discover out at the trailhead that you lot forgot to download your digital maps to your phone? When this unfortunate event happens, digital maps in the app appear fuzzy and out-of-focus equally soon as you exit cell service. We have a solution for you: Gaia Topo.

Recently redesigned, Gaia Topo lets you download huge swaths of land in a matter of minutes and without hogging up your phone's precious storage space. Download an enormous wilderness expanse, a sprawling national park, or even your unabridged state — yes, the whole country — and never be caught without a downloaded topographic map once more. Hither's how.

How to Download Gaia Topo for Offline Utilise

Downloading maps to your phone in Gaia GPS is easy and intuitive. Follow these steps to download your entire state, a park, or a wilderness area with Gaia Topo.

Membership. Brand sure you have a Premium Membership to Gaia GPS to download maps. Gaia Topo is free to employ. Still, downloading maps for offline use requires a Premium Membership.
Select Gaia Topo every bit your map source. Open up the Gaia GPS app. While viewing the map in the iOS or Android Gaia GPS app, click the Layers button at the upper right. Make sure to select Gaia Topo. Deselect all other maps sources for optimum download speed and size.
Navigate to the area yous want to download. You can simply pan the map by swiping or you lot tin can search points of interest or trails using the magnifying drinking glass search icon. Merely type in a point of interest in the area you desire to download, such equally a summit, a lake, or a city, and select one of the suggested locations to directly the map to the area.
Tap the "+" button. Tap the "+" button at the top of the screen and select "Download Maps".
Select the expanse to download. Later on selecting "Download Maps," you volition be directed to the map, where you will run into a red rectangle with blue dots at the corners. The area shaded by the ruby rectangle signifies what will be downloaded. Drag the blue dots at the corners of the red rectangle to make the surface area larger or smaller.
Download a state, national park, or wilderness area. You can create i large box that covers the entire state or piece together multiple downloads to exist more precise if the area you lot are downloading is not a perfect rectangle. The latter arroyo helps keep file sizes smaller and download times quicker, but information technology does mean you'll take to repeat steps 2 through half dozen until you've downloaded the entire area to your satisfaction. Don't worry about overlapping the red rectangles—Gaia GPS will not download both areas afterward you've already downloaded one.
Adjust the Max Zoom slide bar. To arrange the detail level for the map download. The college the zoom (1:12,000), the more item the map will accept merely as well the larger the file will be. If you're running out of room on your phone, reduce the zoom (1:1536000) to brand a smaller file size. Learn more virtually zoom levels hither.
Tap Salve. Tap "Salvage" at the lower right side of your screen. A screen will pop up giving you the option to name your map and save it in a particular folder. Press "Save" over again, this time in the upper righthand corner of the screen. The download begins, at which point the app goes dorsum to the main map. To scout the progress of your download, tap on the Download Condition spinning wheel icon towards the upper left of the main map in the iOS app. In the Android app, tap the Saved icon, then select Downloads from the bill of fare.

Gaia Topo: Quick and Tiny to Download

Downloading maps is crucial to your adventure game because it lets yous view maps and navigate in areas without cell service. Traditionally, downloading big areas of the map soaked upward a lot of time and telephone storage. But the completely retooled Gaia Topo takes the sting out of this procedure.

Hand curated and optimized for efficient downloads, Gaia Topo delivers minuscule download times and file sizes all while improving its manner and detail. The chart below gives examples of download times and file sizes for large areas of the map. Of class, downloads speeds may vary depending on the size of the expanse downloaded, the zoom level selected, and internet speed.

A screenshot shoes download size and speeds for various states.

Create Snap-to-Trail Routes from Anywhere

An added bonus of downloading the map for your entire state: you can at present create snap-to-trail routes in areas without cell service. When you create a route in the field, snap-to-trail automatically follows the contours of the trail for you. This gives you the most accurate altitude and tiptop metrics available and builds your route quickly and precisely. Enjoy this seamless road planning tool with your Android and iOS devices, from anywhere at whatever time. No wifi or cell service needed.

If you lot've already downloaded the map for your entire state simply would like to access snap-to-trail route planning offline, you will need to redownload the map. Here's how to do so:

Delete the map from your Gaia GPS account.
Select the area you would like to download.
Make sure "Include information to create and navigate routes offline" is toggled ON.
Download your map, and you are expert to go!

Ready for an Adventure Offline

In one case Gaia Topo is downloaded, you volition able to access the map even when your telephone is completely offline and in plane mode so you tin can locate yourself on the map, create routes, create and edit waypoints to mark important spots like campsites and water sources, and tape tracks and follow them back.

Gaia Topo is costless to use on gaiagps.com and on your mobile device through the Gaia GPS app. The free version allows you to view the map, plan a route, and search for trails all while connected to the internet. Even so, yous will need a Gaia GPS membership to be able to download maps for offline use.

Try a Gaia GPS Premium Membership to tap into a limited number of maps within the Gaia GPS itemize. The Premium Membership unlocks the entire Gaia GPS map catalog, allowing you lot to layer and download multiple maps sources at one time. View the maps together to get a complete picture of the terrain you will come across on your next adventure.