Today's modern technology enables us travelling with an ease and makes many things much simpler. Nowedays, practically any smarthphone has a GPS receiver and there is plenty of software that can take the most of it. Only a decade ago, it was unconceivable that one could easily afford a GPS receiver capable of determining the location on an offline map on the go, comparing the current location with the planned route, or sending the current GPS location by e-mail or text message. Now, you can do it with an ease, just have a look how:
I have had a chance to compare different map softwares for the Android OS and I find as the most suitable software for hiking, biking, or planning any outdoor activity in general the software Locus Map. It has a myriad of functions that can be overwhelming on the first glimpse, but later prove very useful. In this article, I will show you how to plan and calculate your route online, and later download the offline map solely for the area you need.
There are basically 2 options for planning your biking trip.
a). You look through the planned route in a Locus online map in different sizes that save to your cache. This is especially handy if you do not have mobile internet on your phone and you are planning a small trip. In this case, you do not have to download anything, just look through the desired resolution of the map at areas needed. The major disadvantage is that if you zoom in or out from parts of the map that you look through online maps while being offline, blank areas will appear, whereas by downloaded maps the image will get bigger and thus better for reading.
b). You download offline map of your route. For using these functions, you will have upgrade to the pro version. Trust me, it is worth it.
Here is the complete guide:
1. Choose the appropriate online map in Locus/Maps/Online.
2. Go to Locus/More/Add New Route & Meassure.
3. Plan your route: The fastest and still reliable map resolution for planning is from the 3 km distance and your route should not be longer than 150 km for proper map download.
4. Save your route to a desired folder.
5. Go to Locus/Map/and click on the third icon from the top-right corner which stands for download map management and click on Select path.
6. For optimal area download, you do not need more than 1,2 km of width (when you go astray, you usually do not go as that far). Check thoroughly if the pink area covers all your route and adjust if needed. The best resolution is one before the street resolution. Do not worry that it looks pretty tine in the preview. You will be able to zoom in very comfortable. Higher resolutions do not pay off as there is very little new information (roads will be still roads, and street still streets, right?) and require a lot of space on your device.
7. For downloading a map from OpenCycloMap.org, you will need to purchase some credit. I know, another expense, but for a bigger trip you can afford paying few bucks in exchange for a convenient offline map.
8. Save your selected my in a desired folder in the SQL type format (Separate map, default settings).
Now you can easily go to Maps/Personal/ and select the downloaded map. You might as well show the route that tells you how far you have got so far. You do that by selecting your saved path in Locus/Data/Tracks
You can also download tracks as a *.kml file from other sources, for instance my route available here.
If you happen to be on a big trip and need to share you exact location, you can do that by clicking on Locus/More/ Share & Export Data/Share Map Center and copy the coordinates either to an e-mail, or to a text message. The coordinates can be eaisly looked up in Google, even with some pictures from the Google Street View.
This software contains many other useful features which I believe you get a hang of after some time. Some of the most useful for bikers are undoubtedly the elevation profile, track recording, points of interest (with an optional picture upload), and the built-in GPS navigation.
I find Locus Map as the best alternative for outdoor maps. It is much faster than Google Maps, even though Google Maps works better for fiding specific locations and planning your car route.
If you are looking for a simple software for offline maps, I recommend MapsWithMe that allows you to download a map of a specific country or region just with one click. This is the lightning-fast software and most convenient as a map guide in cities for it can easily show you the nearest toilets, ATMs, shops, sights, and restaurants.
The optimal hardware for using GPS and Locus with an ease is at least 1 GHz processor and 768 Mb of RAM: these requirements fullfills almost every smartphone in 2013.
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