The best hiking trail app for Android in 2026 is AllTrails for finding trails, with Gaia GPS for serious backcountry navigation and Wikiloc for a huge library of community routes with free offline maps. If you want something completely free, Organic Maps adds offline hiking maps with no ads or account.
Cooper is the Androidlounge editorial pen name. Install counts, update dates, trial lengths and feature lists come from each app’s Google Play listing (Australian store) on 10 November 2026; company history comes from the linked reports. We didn’t test these apps on the trail. Subscription prices vary by region and change often, so we’ve left out US-dollar figures: check the A$ price in Google Play before you start a trial.
In short: the top three
- AllTrails: still the best place to answer “where should I hike this weekend?” with more than 500,000 trails, recent photos and reviews. Read the trial terms before you subscribe, and note the newer Peak tier that sits above Plus.
- Gaia GPS: the serious navigator for off-trail and backcountry work, with topo maps, offline downloads and (in the US) land-ownership layers. Pay for it only if you actually leave maintained trails.
- Wikiloc: tens of millions of real GPS-recorded routes worldwide and free offline topo downloads. The strongest free-leaning option for finding and following routes other people have actually walked.
What changed since our 2024 list
The hiking-app market consolidated hard since our 2024 roundup, and several apps on the old list no longer deserve a spot. ViewRanger was switched off in 2022 and its users were moved to Outdooractive. FATMAP shut down on 1 October 2024 after Strava absorbed it. Hiking Project, once the great free option, has had far less attention since onX bought its parent company in December 2020.
The money picture changed too. AllTrails added a Peak subscription above Plus, Gaia GPS trials roll into a paid subscription unless you cancel, and Komoot was bought by Bending Spoons in 2025, followed by large layoffs and a price rise. The good news is that genuinely free options got stronger: Wikiloc, HiiKER, and Organic Maps all give you free offline maps, which most paid apps still lock behind subscriptions. Offline maps and wrong-turn alerts are now table stakes; treat anything that needs a live signal as unsuitable for the trail.
The picks
1. AllTrails
Price: Free with occasional ads; AllTrails Plus is an annual subscription that adds offline maps and wrong-turn alerts and removes ads; the newer AllTrails Peak tier sits above Plus and adds custom route creation and condition planning.
The default answer for most hikers, with more than 50 million Android installs and over 500,000 trails, including plenty of Australian walks. The strength is discovery: recent photos, condition reports, and reviews from people who actually hiked last week. Offline maps, wrong-turn alerts, and live sharing sit behind Plus. Complaints tend to be about trials turning into paid plans and nudges toward Peak, so read the trial terms before you tap subscribe.
Verdict: The best all-rounder for trail discovery and trip planning. Best for: casual to regular day hikers who want trail ideas with trustworthy recent photos.
2. Gaia GPS
Price: Free tier with limited maps; Premium adds unlimited map downloads, offline navigation and 3D maps, with a 7-day free trial that renews automatically unless you cancel.
Gaia goes where AllTrails ends: detailed topo maps, satellite imagery, waypoints, campsite information and, in the US, public-versus-private land overlays. Downloads work fully offline. The free tier is mostly a demo, and much of the extra map data is US-focused, so Australian walkers get less out of it than Americans do.
Verdict: The most trustworthy navigation app for real backcountry. Best for: off-trail hikers, backpackers, and anyone whose route leaves maintained paths.
3. Wikiloc
Price: Free core with free offline topo maps; Wikiloc Premium is a paid subscription that adds extra navigation and planning features.
Wikiloc is a giant library of GPS-recorded routes, the Play listing says 50 million of them across up to 80 activities, built by people who actually walked, rode, or climbed them. Downloading topographic maps for offline use and following your own recorded routes is free, which already beats most rivals. Premium adds more navigation and planning features on top. Where AllTrails suits popular, well-reviewed trails, Wikiloc shines for finding routes nobody wrote a guidebook about. It can also send routes to many Garmin and Wear OS watches.
Verdict: The best route library for finding real recorded tracks, with a genuinely useful free tier. Best for: hikers exploring unfamiliar regions, plus anyone who wants free offline topos.
4. Komoot
Price: Your first region is free forever; more regions and the Premium subscription cost extra. Check the A$ prices in Google Play, because Komoot raised prices in 2025.
Komoot remains the best turn-by-turn voice navigation for hiking, cycling, and trail running, and its route planner picks surfaces suited to your activity rather than dumping you on a road. Since Bending Spoons bought it in March 2025, most of the original team has gone and pricing has changed, so check what’s free and what’s subscription-only before you pay.
Verdict: Excellent navigation and route planning, but check what the subscription now gates before buying packs. Best for: hikers who want spoken directions and multi-sport use.
5. HiiKER
Price: Free with offline trail downloads, route planning and GPX export; PRO+ adds premium maps (the listing quotes it from €6.49 a month).
HiiKER is one of the best-value hiking apps. You can download more than 70,000 trails for free, use them offline, plan your own routes and export GPX files to a Garmin, Suunto or Coros watch. PRO+ adds premium maps such as Ordnance Survey and USGS. The trade-offs are a smaller community (the Play listing shows 100,000+ installs) and a less polished feel than the market leaders.
Verdict: The best budget route planner with genuinely free offline maps. Best for: hikers who want free offline trail downloads without an AllTrails subscription, and UK walkers who want OS maps.
6. Outdooractive
Price: Free with ads; PRO and PRO+ subscriptions (with a free trial) add official topo maps and extras.
Outdooractive is the app ViewRanger’s users were pushed to when it closed, and it inherits that role: routes planned by experts and official topo maps from national mapping agencies, including Ordnance Survey, Swisstopo, IGN, USGS and New Zealand’s LINZ. Its strength is Europe; navigation is competent but less fluid than Komoot’s.
Verdict: The best choice for officially vetted routes and European alpine hiking. Best for: hikers heading to Europe or New Zealand who want official maps rather than crowd-sourced guesses.
7. PeakVisor
Price: Free with limits; PeakVisor Pro is a paid subscription.
Point your camera at a ridgeline and PeakVisor names the peaks, using AR plus a database of over a million mountains. Around that party trick it has grown a genuinely useful 3D terrain viewer, trail maps with elevation profiles, GPS tracking and peak-bagging challenges, and the listing says every feature works offline. Some features need Pro.
Verdict: A specialised but superb companion app rather than a full navigator. Best for: peak baggers, alpine hikers, and anyone who keeps asking “which mountain is that?”
8. Organic Maps
Price: Free, open source, no ads, no account, no tracking; funded by donations.
Organic Maps is the hiking-adjacent app on this list that costs nothing and phones home to nobody. Built on OpenStreetMap, it includes contour lines, hiking and cycling layers, route import and recording, and full offline search and navigation with Android Auto support, all free. Map data is refreshed about twice a month. Data quality depends on the community, so popular regions are excellent and remote ones thinner. It is not a trail-discovery app; treat it as a privacy-respecting offline base map and backup navigator.
Verdict: The best fully free offline map app to pair with a discovery app like AllTrails. Best for: privacy-conscious hikers, budget users, and anyone who wants a no-account backup navigator.
9. TrailForks
Price: Free; Trailforks Pro (2-week free trial) adds full offline maps and unlimited access to every trail.
Built by the Pinkbike community, TrailForks remains the definitive database for mountain biking, with more than 700,000 trails, condition reports and closures, much of it maintained with local trail associations. It covers hiking and running too, but hiking is not the reason anyone reaches for it. The app is actively maintained (last Play update 27 October 2026).
Verdict: Unmissable for mountain bikers, optional for hikers. Best for: hikers who share trails with bikes and want current closure and condition reports.
10. Hiking Project
Price: Free.
Hiking Project deserves a mention mostly as a caution. It remains on Google Play (last updated 7 October 2026) with a deep free database of US trails and offline-capable maps, but it rated 3.7 stars when we checked, and onX now puts its trail data into its paid onX Backcountry app. It isn’t dead, but it’s no longer the app we recommended in 2024, and its coverage is US-only.
Verdict: Free and still functional in the US, but in maintenance mode. Best for: US trips only; AllTrails or Gaia do the same job better.
11. MapMyWalk (replaces MapMyHike)
Price: Free; optional MVP subscription for coaching and advanced stats.
MapMyHike no longer appears on Google Play: its US listing returned “not found” when we checked on 4 November 2026. MapMy says its apps share one account and the same features, so MapMyWalk records the same route, pace, distance and elevation data. The MapMy apps have belonged to Outside, which also owns Gaia GPS and Trailforks, since August 2024. Trail discovery and mapping are basic, so this is not a navigation tool.
Verdict: Fine if you want calorie and pace logging on familiar trails. Best for: fitness-focused hikers who already use the MapMy family and want stats over maps.
12. Weather: BOM Weather and Weather Underground
Price: BOM Weather is free with no ads. Weather Underground is free with ads, with an optional paid tier.
In Australia, start with BOM Weather, the Bureau of Meteorology’s official app. It has hourly and 7-day forecasts, radar, rain notifications and warnings, and it’s the source warnings come from.
Weather Underground is a useful second opinion because it pulls conditions from more than 270,000 personal weather stations, which can show what’s happening near a trailhead when it differs from the nearest town. Coverage depends on whether anyone nearby runs a station.
Verdict: BOM for forecasts and warnings, Weather Underground for a local second opinion. Best for: checking trailhead conditions and sudden-storm risk before you leave.
13. Emergency+ (Australia)
Price: Free, no ads, no in-app purchases.
Not a trail app, but the one every Australian walker should carry. Emergency+ was developed by Australia’s emergency services and their government and industry partners. It calls Triple Zero (000) and shows your GPS coordinates and a what3words address on screen, so you can read your exact location to the call-taker. The what3words address works offline.
We’ve dropped the American Red Cross First Aid app from this list. It follows US guidance, and some first aid differs here: for snakebite, Australian advice is a pressure immobilisation bandage. A local first aid course beats any app.
Verdict: The best free safety net to install before your first walk, not your hundredth. Best for: every hiker in Australia, especially anyone going solo or into areas with patchy signal.
How to choose
- Casual day hiker who wants ideas: AllTrails free tier, upgrade to Plus only if you hike in poor-signal areas.
- Route library and free offline maps: Wikiloc or HiiKER before paying anyone.
- Real backcountry or off-trail navigation: Gaia GPS premium; skip it if you stay on maintained paths.
- Mountain biker: TrailForks is non-negotiable; treat the rest as optional.
- European or alpine hiking: Outdooractive or Komoot for official, vetted route networks.
- Budget of zero: Organic Maps plus the free tier of Wikiloc or AllTrails covers planning and navigation.
- Everyone in Australia: add Emergency+ and BOM Weather, both free.
One practical rule: whatever you choose, download the maps for the area at home. No hiking app works without signal unless you prepared in advance, and signal is exactly what disappears on the trail.
More outdoor guides: weather apps for nature lovers, birdwatching and bird ID apps, apps to identify trees and stargazing apps for a night under the stars.
FAQ
What is the best free hiking app for Android?
Organic Maps is the only fully free option here with no limits at all. Wikiloc and HiiKER both offer free offline map downloads and free route following, with subscriptions adding extra navigation features and premium map layers. AllTrails’ free tier is useful for browsing but blocks offline maps.
Do hiking apps work without cell service?
Yes, if you download the maps in advance. AllTrails Plus, Gaia GPS Premium, Komoot and Trailforks Pro all support offline maps, and Wikiloc, HiiKER and Organic Maps offer free offline downloads. Do it at home on Wi-Fi, because downloads can fail partway when signal drops.
Is AllTrails Plus worth it?
Plus is worth it if you regularly walk where signal drops and want offline maps and wrong-turn alerts. The newer Peak tier adds custom route creation and condition planning; casual hikers can skip it. If you start a trial, cancel it in Google Play before it ends unless you want to keep paying.
Which app should I have for emergencies on an Australian walk?
Emergency+. It’s free, it calls Triple Zero (000) and it shows your GPS coordinates and what3words address so you can tell the call-taker exactly where you are. Download your maps and tell someone your route before you go, too.
Which hiking app is best for navigation versus discovery?
AllTrails wins for discovering trails and judging conditions from photos and reviews. For turn-by-turn navigation while moving, Komoot and Gaia GPS are stronger. For following routes other people recorded, Wikiloc is unmatched. Serious hikers typically run one discovery app and one offline navigation app rather than a single tool.
Final verdict
For most Android hikers the practical setup is two free apps: AllTrails to find and vet a trail, and Wikiloc or Organic Maps for offline maps you never pay for. Spend money only when your hiking outgrows them, Gaia GPS if you go off-trail or into the backcountry, Komoot or Outdooractive if you hike regularly in Europe, TrailForks if you also ride. Avoid anything that demands a subscription for basic offline maps, cancel trials through Google Play rather than by uninstalling, and keep Emergency+ installed no matter what. The tools got more consolidated and more expensive in the last two years, but the free options also got genuinely good.
Sources
Google Play listings (Australian store) checked 10 November 2026: AllTrails, Gaia GPS, Wikiloc, Komoot, HiiKER, Outdooractive, PeakVisor, Organic Maps, Trailforks, Hiking Project, MapMyWalk, BOM Weather, Weather Underground, Emergency+.
Last reviewed: November 10, 2026
