Free outdoor trip planning software

   
 






 

To plan an outdoor trip, hiking or mountainbike tour, a outdoor planning software is required. They display topographic outdoor maps like 4UMaps in the background and allow you create a Gps track or route. Additionally they display the track distance and the expected height meters and the elevation profile. Below you find a list of good free applications:

 

  •  Bike Experience

  • JGPSTrackEdit

  • QLandkarteGT

 

Bike Experience

A good free trip planning software is Bike Experience. Independently of its name, it can be used for any kind for outdoor trip planning, and includes also a training module, geo tagging of photos etc.

 

Bike Experience Gps Viewer Module

Bike Experience Gps Viewer Module

 

At the left side is the planned track, in the middle the map, and the bottom window shows the trip length and the height.
By selecting the peaks in the lower window, the position on the map is automatically marked.
Trips can easily imported and exported to/from different devices and in the most important file formats.

 

How to set up Bike Experience to run with 4UMaps

After the installation select File/Preferences and select GPS Viewer:

In the Tile Server selection field, select the map that you want to use for your trip planing.
Type
https://www.4umaps.com/

Press OK to save the settings.


To start the trip planning module, press the GPS Viewer icon:




JGPSTrackEdit

The little giant!
JGPSTrackEdit file size is only 0.5 MB, buts its a full blown track editor with 4UMaps (and some others) already built in.

 

It has a good track editor module with routing options, and as a special bonus an API interface to GPSies track database. If you have your lazy day, use existing tracks from other users and modify them with 4UMaps.

 

QLandkarteGT

QLandkarteGT has a wide set of predefined topographic on line maps already built it. Additionally there is a great auto routing feature built in: Just define your start and endpoint, and QLandkarteGT calculates the best way for hiking, cycling, mountain biking etc.

 

To add 4UMaps into QLandkarteGT, right click into the Stream window and select "Add TMS map...":

 

and add the settings below:

Add in the URL field the following string:
https://www.4umaps.com/%251/%252/%253.png

Then you should have 4UMaps in the background.

 

Create a new track:

If you want to create a new track, select Overlay in the menu and then F7 and click your route on the screen.

To save your track, press Strg+S.

Printing:

It is also possible to print the route together with the background map