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Any apps that will suggest off raod routes? Any apps that will suggest off raod routes?
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Photo by Ulrike Hahnel, amazing rock formations, Lagune Route, Bolivia

I haven't been everywhere...
but it's on my list!


Photo by Ulrike Hahnel,
amazing rock formations,
Lagune Route, Bolivia




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  #1  
Old 3 Weeks Ago
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Any apps that will suggest off raod routes?
Hi all... i am driving myself a little mad with this and going around in circles. can anyone recommend an app that will automatically preference trails over paved roads when creating a route? much like komoot will do for mtb routes. I apprecite that i can import a gpx file to apps like osmand+ or create my own. what i am interested in is whether or not there is an app that will create an off road route for me. I have found that allowing apps like komoot to suggest mtb routes i have found some unexpected gems and would like to apply the same with my moto adventures. I guess i am looking for something like the calimoto app (does a great job of creating windy road routes) but for trails. any thoughts would be much appreciated... i am utterly lost (excuse the pun) with it all...
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I'd be interested, too - OSMAnd has routing options for motorcycles and to include off-road, but when I used it it routed me around trails that I know are less distance than the road (though probably slower) and gave the same road route as Google Maps with "avoid motorways" on (though that may be because the non-motorway main roads around here are sufficiently twisty to count as motorcycle fun, lol)
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Unfortunately, there isn't one perfect app for that purpose!

What I did for our Offroad Pyrenees Tour in 2024:

I asked friends and blog readers for their recorded 4x4 tracks from the Pyrenees and downloaded any available 4x4 tracks from Wikiloc.

I only used tracks from the last 3 years to avoid too many closed routes.

I imported all the tracks into a new "Google My Maps" project and reviewed them to see if they looked realistic (zooming in with satellite view), as some of them were usually unusable (bad recordings, bad settings..

In the end, I approved a few tracks. I then exported them as KML or KMLZ files and used them in the selected offroad navigation apps, currently GaiaGPS and Mapout.

I simply chose an entry point for the Pyrenees, and once I arrived, I navigated day by day—searching for the most remote or challenging tracks.

These apps are ready for navigation, but it feels like you need to be an offroad tour operator to invest the amount of time required to make them truly usable.

I tried to link my reviews of the apps...

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Mmm, from my point of view the purpose of a good app is to avoid spending ages working stuff out manually ... at that point I may as well just do the whole thing by hand (which I've done before, and then just dumped the file on my Garmin).

I just got back from a hiking holiday in the south of Aragón, and OSMAnd was very handy for identifying routes but not so useful for deciding the routing even when set to it's walking profile. I'm sure it'll get better in due course, there was an update recently that fixed a bunch of stuff.
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