Gaia vs CalTopo

[303]

Hi all,

I am returning to backcountry activity after a few year hiatus (kids). The only things I've done in the past few years are a miserable trip NOBO lost coast (never again), waterhouse lake w/the kid, and a few hut trips on splitboard in winter. So now it's time to get back out to high granite, my favorite place.

I see a lot of people on reddit saying Gaia has gone to crap under new ownership and prices have gone up, and that everyone is moving to CalTopo. I've only ever used CT for route planning on computer and then Gaia outdoors. Can anyone share their thoughts about this so i can start learning new apps before my trip in August?

Thank you!

[SirBC]

I bought a 'lifetime' Gaia license years ago, and then after a few years they said, "Just kidding", you are now on a yearly subscription. That really soured me on them but I kept using the mobile app as it had one feature that Caltopo didn't, which was the ability to create photo waypoints. Caltopo now has that ability (at least for the paying level, not sure about free) so I no longer have a reason to use Gaia.

[c9h13no3]

I use free Caltopo for planning, Peakbagger app in the wild.

[wildhiker]

I use paid Caltopo for planning trips and maintaining a master map of all my hiking routes and campsites. I find Caltopo so useful that I'm happy to pay for it, even though I use only a few of the pro features (the Sentinel Hub satellite images is one). I use paper maps that I print from Caltopo in the field!
-Phil

[Wandering Daisy]

Just curious, do either of these map programs allow you to copyright your data and have privacy rights, or do they "own" your data (routes etc).

[wildhiker]

Just curious, do either of these map programs allow you to copyright your data and have privacy rights, or do they "own" your data (routes etc).

Caltopo requires you to use an account on Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple, or Facebook to login - and then stores your data on the cloud space provided by that vendor. You control who can see your data on Caltopo, but the data policies of the 3rd party where it is actually stored also matter. I don't think they "own" your data, but they probably reserve the right to look at it or use it to train their AI agents.
-Phil

[maxr22]

I use caltopo on my phone, and have paper maps printed using caltopo.

I love the slope angle shading feature + the global imagery functions + sentinel hub images while hiking off trail.

My only annoyance is I can’t figure out how to get lines to snap to trail tracks so I can’t get a precise reading on how many miles I have left for a given route as quickly as I’d like.

The travel time feature I also find to be fairly accurate.

[CAMERONM]

Caltopo continues to improve and I have gladly paid for it for years, primarily for route planning/maps. I don't quite like routefinding in the field with it, and even on my fast 14pro phone, map quadrants appear and disappear when zooming. They are both good, but if you can afford one, at this point I might point to caltopo.