Y'all have helped me pick my pack for my upcoming elk hunt, now I want to pick your brains about mapping apps. I fully plan to just use my phone for my GPS needs but can't decide between Gaia, BaseMap, or OnX.

I currently have OnX and it seems pretty decent, but to me it's kind of clunky. I've never actually used it for navigating, so not sure how well it will do on that end? Gaia and BaseMap both look really nice just tinkering with them on the free side for now.

Any thoughts on the three for general navigation and setting waypoints, etc?

I use onX. Mainly because I started using it years ago and that's what I know. I downloaded gaia last year, but never spent the time with it. OnX does seem to have gotten clunkier with age vs getting easier to use.

I navigate just fine with onX hybrid map (topo + satellite). Sometimes still nice to have compass to get a heading before heading out.

I have used GaiaGPS in Rocky Mountain National Park for years. I do a lot of off trail hiking and running, so it's nice to plan out my run with the coordinates in advance (and working offline) in case I get off track. Being able to download a variety of maps and manage routes on the web are nice.

tmtxco said:

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I have used GaiaGPS in Rocky Mountain National Park for years. I do a lot of off trail hiking and running, so it's nice to plan out my run with the coordinates in advance (and working offline) in case I get off track. Being able to download a variety of maps and manage routes on the web are nice.

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Everything you said is an option in OnX. The boundary and property data are the kicker for me.

Most will say OnX because that is all they know. OnX got 20 million investment and last 2 years used that to buy every hunting influencer. Its a good product but I think Basemap is better. I used OnX back in the day, nothing wrong with it.

However Basemap is a better product

Huntstand is a good product

The GAIA I have heard is good but I have never used it.

AgLA06 said:

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tmtxco said:

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I have used GaiaGPS in Rocky Mountain National Park for years. I do a lot of off trail hiking and running, so it's nice to plan out my run with the coordinates in advance (and working offline) in case I get off track. Being able to download a variety of maps and manage routes on the web are nice.

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Everything you said is an option in OnX. The boundary and property data are the kicker for me.

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Basemap offers that too. I would bet they all offer that feature but I can't say for sure about Huntstand or GAIA

Like mentioned above, BRING A COMPASS if the weather is cold your phone battery won't last. Always bring a backup

I use Gaia.
Mostly for off highway roads, trails, and such, but also for hiking and trail running. Love being able to overlap different maps depending on what I'm doing. The maps they make internally are pretty nice too.

Gaia for hunting and hiking. So much easier to use than OnX. I prefer the arrow location icon in Gaia over the blue dot on OnX.

I use OnX for scouting and property owner info.

Gaia applies different colors to different tracks that are recorded which is helpful.
I like the standard Gaia topo map better than the OnX topo map.
Does OnX allow you to select different background maps like USFS and USGS maps? If so I haven't figured out how

This guy offers a decent escouting class. They cover lots of basics of Gaia and onX. Generally speaking, Gaia appears to be a bit more feature rich as compared to onX.

https://treelinepursuits.com/

I think it comes down to the person. I tried Gaia and another one first and just didn't like the interface or features. Just wasn't intuitive to me. OnX was. Especially on your phone.

Different strokes for different folks.

I've only used Gaia and have for years for our western hunts and camping trips. I've looked into others but haven't seen a reason to change. I've upgraded to the premium subscription and they have plenty of good topo, aerial and maps to activate and download from for offline/limited cell signal use. Has lots of useful features, not cluttered and is simple to use once you get the basics figured out

Well, leaning towards staying with OnX this year, mainly because the guy who is going to help me out uses OnX. Have a local that's going to go with me and he's sent me some Waypoints via OnX.

He sent them to me in a text message and I opened/saved them on the OnX app on my phone. But when I open it up on the laptop, those Waypoints don't show up. Any of y'all know how to sync the app so that they show up on the laptop? I thought it synced automatically, but these aren't showing up.