Best navigation apps for bicycle touring

How to find the best route for your bicycle tour? What is the best navigation app for bicycle touring? I’ve tested many of them and have a clear favourite surprisingly few cycle tourists are familiar with. Check out my guide and start planning your first tour on a bike!

How do I plan my route?

My approach to planning a route for my bicycle tours is fairly lax. You would never see me spending hours designing every tiny detail of my trip and creating an exhaustive itinerary. I usually pick a couple of highlights, look up for best bicycle routes in the area and then try to connect the dots, still leaving some space for spontaneous detours when someone I meet tells me about The Most Stunning Place in the area. 

Depending on my fitness at a given moment, I decide what kilometrage I can do per day. I would typically plan 5-6 days of cycling a week and 1 or 2 rest days for simply enjoying a place, recovering, and other activities. On top of that, I leave some buffer for unexpected events.

Sometimes planning the whole trip overwhelms me, especially if I am about to travel for weeks. In these cases, I calculate how long is the shortest route from point A to B. I add about 40-50 % buffer I need for detours. Then I check if I still can make it on time for any deadline awaiting me back home. During my trip, I make a plan for 3-4 days at a time. It feels easier and less overwhelming than creating a whole itinerary for a two-month trip.

What makes a good navigation app for bicycle touring?

Here are the criteria you need to consider when choosing the right app for navigating your bike tour:

1. Reliability

User-friendliness, great design and thousands of features mean nothing if the app makes you wade through the thicket or directs you to a highway where cyclists are not allowed.

You want something that not only can easily calculate the fastest route from point A to B but also a bike-friendly route. An app that considers climbs and road quality will make the planning process smoother and uncomplicated.

Never rely on any automatic route planner 100 %. Bear in mind that the weather in the mountains can make some roads and trails dangerous and that the maps are not always up to date.

2. Maps offline

The option to download the maps offline is an absolute must. You don’t want to find yourself in the middle of the mountains with no phone coverage and no clue where to go. Downloading the maps offline will also save your mobile data.

All the apps mentioned below allow you to download the maps, yet, some offer it only in the paid version. Prices are not high compared to what we used to pay for paper maps only a few decades ago. However, as a low-budget traveller, I prefer to avoid extra expenses. That’s why my favourite app is the one where I can download all the maps of the world for free. 

3. Cycle routes and hiking paths

To view the cycle routes with their names on a map is crucial for me. This way, I can easily find This Cool Bike Route someone told me about and adjust my planning to follow it. 

I also appreciate having an opportunity to control if I want to go more on the road or off the road. Some apps allow you to choose if you prefer the fastest route or the most scenic one. 

I like to take some days off from cycling and do small hikes instead, so I find it very useful to have an overview of the hiking trails in the area too.

4. Points of interest

A good app will make it easy to find a grocery store, campsite or restaurant in the area. It will also help you explore the interesting places near you; a giant waterfall, a weird monument or an off-the-grid local museum.

5. Route planner in the browser

During my trip, I almost exclusively rely on navigation on my phone. The planning itself, however, I prefer to do on my computer. It allows me to see the bigger picture more clearly, and everything is just faster than on my phone. I hate doing things like this on my phone, so a route planner in the browser is a must. 

Things that are less important to me

Voice directions

Some people like having a phone in their pocket telling them when to turn left or right. I rarely use my maps in navigation mode (except for the cities where it is a bit more tricky to find your way around). It drains too much battery. My phone is usually placed on the frame with a quad lock holder (you can see the list of the gear I am using here) with the screen off most of the time. I only check the directions every before crossroads. 

Trip recording

A lot of people use apps to record their GPS track. It is useful if you can access the routes you cycled before. This way you can share them with your friends visiting the same country.

It drains a lot of battery, so I would give it up if I had to do it on my phone. Luckily, I have a sports watch with GPS (Garmin Forerunner 630) from times when I was a passionate runner. I record all tracks on it. It automatically synchronises with my Strava account. Thanks to it, my family can also check where I am at the end of the day (unless I sleep in the middle of the forest with no internet connection). 

Best navigation apps for bicycle touring

Most of my tours have taken place in Europe, so I can only speak for the reliability of these apps in this part of the world (+ in Kyrgyzstan). I talked about this topic with many other cyclists, and I tried to include their opinion on these apps in other places as much as possible.

All the apps below are available both for Android and iOS.

Mapy.cz

The Czech app Mapy.cz is my indisputable number 1 for planning my bicycle routes. I am surprised how few cyclists use it, as in my opinion, this app has everything you need on your tour.

Things I like about mapy.cz

• Free offline maps 
• A lot of cycle routes and hiking paths are marked and described (more in some regions like Central and Western Europe than for example the Balkans)
• Two modes: road cycling and MTB allow you to plan your route on or off the road depending on your preferences
• A lot of points of interest like landmarks, nature places, campsites, water sources etc. (there is even an option to directly book your accommodation on booking.com)
• Clean interface
• Easy to plan a route in the browser and adapt it on your phone
• Clear elevation markers and elevation profile

Things I dislike about mapy.cz:

• Sometimes typing in a precise address doesn’t work. You have to look up the address on Google Maps, copy the coordinates and paste them into mapy.cz
• A few times mapy.cz led me on trails terrible for cycling (In their defence: it was in MTB mode, so I should have been prepared for some obstacles).

Google Maps 

I never use Google Maps for planning the route when cycling. It is, however, the best app to look for points of interest. Whether you are looking for sights to visit, a bike shop, groccery store or a campsite – Google Maps is the best. 

The street view helps you plan as well: you can check out what the views from a given road look like and the quality of the road. You can also check the traffic on different routes and estimate which one is the safest. 

Komoot

Described by many as the best app for cycling and bicycle touring, Komoot is a real machine.

Things I like about komoot

• Komoot is not only a navigation app but also a community platform where people share stories and photos from their rides. This makes it an outstanding tool for the planning phase when you are still looking for inspiration.
• Route planner in the browser and on the phone.
• Detailed information about the difficulty level of the route, type of surface etc.
• Option to choose between cycle touring, road biking and mountain biking. The first one is a mix of both worlds, combining dirt roads and paved roads.

Things I dislike about komoot:

• Only one region is available offline in the free version. Offline maps for the whole world cost 29,99 euros. 
• No points of interest. It only has the “highlights” – interesting spots marked by the community.

To sum up, komoot is probably the best app from an outdoor adventurer’s point of view but not really from the traveller’s point of view.

Maps.me

Maps.me is one of the most popular navigation maps among backpackers and hikers. I also know a lot of bicycle travellers who use it.

Why I like maps.me:

• Offline maps are available for free.
• A rich base of points of interest, including tourist attractions, shops, accommodation.
• In-the-app tourist guides.
• Good mapping of hiking trails.

Why I dislike maps.me:

• No option to plan your route in a browser.
• No choice between a more on-road or off-road route. Maps.me tends to stick to main roads, so you need to manually adjust the track to avoid busy streets.
• It was recently sold to a new company that doesn’t bother to do regular updates. Some regions are outdated already, and most likely maps.me will be less and less reliable.

Ride with GPS

A few cyclists from the US and Canada recommended Ride with GPS to me. Having tested it briefly in Poland, I am sceptical. The suggested routes were overly complicated – I don’t know if it is an issue in Europe or if you simply need to adjust them manually. 

Why I like Ride with GPS:

• It shows the type of road (paved/unpaved).
• Heatmaps allow you to see what routes are popular among cyclists in the area (paid feature).
• Cycling routes and hiking trails are well marked (use OSM Outdoor layer to see them).

Why I dislike Ride with GPS:

• Route planning is only available in the browser, no way to plan your route in the app, so you have to do all the planning at home.
• Offline maps are only available in the paid version.
• Heatmaps are only available in the paid version.

Open Street Map (OsmAnd)

Why I like OsmAnd:

• User-friendly interface.
• Possibility to choose a preference for dirt roads, shortest route, fewer climbs etc.
• Rich database of points of interest.
• Road quality feature. 
• Offline Wikipedia articles about the location visited – save your data.

Why I dislike OsmAnd:

• The free version has a limited number of maps you can download and use offline. Premium version costs 24.99€

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What apps do you use for bicycle touring? Let me know why in the comments!