Using CalTopo for Outdoor Activities

After using Gaia GPS for years, I have switched over to CalTopo and don't regret it. Maybe my reasons will be helpful to you also.

Outside with Gaia

I discovered Gaia sometime in 2019 or so in anticipation of a trip around Colorado. I needed offline maps, markers, and basic navigation. Adding waypoints in the field was crucial and worked okay. Since that trip I have used Gaia to plan day hikes and remote camping and fishing trips, starting with the web version and syncing to the mobile app. My most used layers were Gaia's topo map, public and private land overlays, the occasional USFS or USGS map, and sometimes satellite imagery.

Gaia's own topo maps are beautiful and I always enjoyed using them, especially after they switched to vector tiles, which allowed me to download whole states for offline use. They are based on OpenStreetMap data, which is generally a good thing as long as the maps are updated from OSM regularly. I also really liked the CarPlay integration to throw the Gaia Overland map onto our car's screen. It only worked when the phone had the app open at the same time, but that was okay, and it was pretty great to have an offline map for car navigation.

Gaia with Outside

In 2021, Outside purchased Gaia. Many people in my circles considered that a bad thing and I agreed, though it really didn't affect me all that much because I had been able to lock in a 5 year subscription at the old $30/year price in 2020. I was able to take my time considering whether it would still meet my needs. For the most part, it did. Even the added social features in 2024 were just a nuisance that I ignored, and now the home tab just errors out when trying to load them. I am not sad.

The bigger problem was the lack of updates from OpenStreetMap and the poor communication around that. Anytime I contacted support about this, the answer was "we update every couple of weeks or so", but that clearly wasn't the case because my OSM edits weren't available. A "planet build" was necessary to get those, but that could take months and would be triggered manually. Which is acceptable, of course, as long as I can have some idea about when my edits will make it into the topo map. As of the time of this writing, it has been about 8 months with no update. This only matters so much to me becase OSM was missing many of the creeks I like to or was planning to fish, and which I had added myself, hoping to get them into Gaia for better planning.

Another thing I've found frustrating with Gaia over the years is the offline data download. The dialog screen showing status is very glitchy. It'd either not download all of them, and/or take forever, and/or just not show any progress. I remember that this has resulted in missing offline data only a couple of times, and just for layers I didn't super care about in my case. Still, the experience was always less than stellar.

None of these things are deal breakers. I have made it work for many years. But together with Gaia's future direction into social features that I don't care about— presumably at the expense of features that I may—and the price hike, and I was open for a change.

Trying CalTopo

I was aware of CalTopo but never seriously considered it, because Gaia did everything I wanted for less money. I was a bit jealous of its ability to print paper maps (something Gaia can also do, albeit more crudely), but not enough to switch. Its interface is not as slick as Gaia's, either, which also turned me off in the past (oh the follies of youth).

This time I made an account and started playing with the layers, while also consuming any somewhat recent blog post and Youtube video I could find to learn how to use it. Most notable among these was Andrew Skurka's long term review of CalTopo and the various SAR related videos (the use case that inspired CalTopo in the first place). The SAR power users especially helped me understand what all I could do with CalTopo, and how much further I could be taking my trip planning.

Let me highlight some of the areas I really like.

Organization

Where Gaia only has one map with objects managed in nested folders, CalTopo can have an unlimited number of completely separate maps that can be managed with their own layers and map objects. The downside it that you cannot nest folders, but I haven't found that necessary yet. I think I like this system. I have one map per mountain range, geographic area, or purpose, and all relevant objects are included there. This works well for my trips: camping in SW Colorado? No problem, just open that map, download the offline data I need (which is shared across all maps, so no duplicate downloads), and everything in that area is right there. With Gaia, the process was "hide all the folders except the one with all the things for my trip." I think I like the hard separation better.

Layers

CalTopo has a lot fewer layers than Gaia, but I find them more useful. Right up front, map layer updates are communicated on a Map Layer Data Updates page, which transparency is greatly appreciated! The topo map includes my OSM edits from last year already, which was a nice bonus. The interface to manage layers and overlays is also more intuitive than Gaia's, which has categories for active layers, inactive layers, and all the layers (with a search function); but the process to get a layer from the full list to active or removing an inactive layer felt very clumsy, to the point that I dreaded spending time in that UI, especially on mobile.

CalTopo, on the other hand, has all the base layers in a dropdown (with additional options on selection, where appropriate). You can stack the base layers, just like in Gaia. It also has several overlays like weather stations, public land info, slope angle shading, ADS-B for live aircraft tracks (!!), and more. They are easy to toggle, with the web version even featuring keyboard shortcuts for some of them. Because of how easy it is to switch layers and overlays, I have made use of many more than I ever did with Gaia.

Not all of the layers are available on the mobile app, at least for offline access, but I think I'm okay with that. The most important ones are there.

Route Profiles

Just like Gaia, CalTopo can show a route's profile, length, and elevation gain/loss. But unlike Gaia, it has even more useful information like slope angle, land cover, tree cover, and diagrams for aspect, and others. The Tree Cover and Slope Angle bars under the profile especially have been helpful in planning hiking routes.

Custom Layers

Custom layers let you import tiles from other mapping services or open data sets, but I haven't found a need beyond just trying it out. They also let you generate custom layers or overlays. I'll only highlight one of those: Terrain Shading. You can set parameters for slope, canopy cover, elevation, and aspect, and CalTopo will shade the map in all places that match your conditions. One of the SAR exercises I went through tasked me to find suitable landing spots for a rescue helicopter. To do that, you'd pick a slope from 0 to maybe 5 degrees and canopy of 0 %, and CalTopo will show possible candidates. Tweak the parameters as needed for your situation. I could imagine running a query for very flat ground to identify possible camp sites, but haven't done so yet. There are other custom layers that are equally useful or at least cool to play with, like shading anything that's within line of sight from a given point.

Printing

CalTopo's Print Screen is amazing. You can set page size and scale, with a host of other options, then add as many pages as you want, arrange them all on the map to define their areas, and CalTopo will create a PDF just as specified plus an overview page. The printed map will have a QR code for sharing (if you set the right permissions), magnetic declination, scale, projection, and any other info you told it to print, like a grid overlay. Perfect for a backup to use with a compass.

3D Terrain

A fairly recent update added 3D terrain, something I have seen other people use Google Earth for. I have never used it extensively because I'm pretty comfortable with reading topo maps, but it is pretty nice to just visualize the terrain in 3D.

Little Things

Gaia allows coordinate entry for markers only in the format you choose as your default. So if your coordinate format is decimal lat/long, that's what you'll have to enter when creating a marker. For most people that'll be just fine. I prefer a grid coordinate system, but often also need to enter lat/longs. With Gaia I'd have to switch over the setting, in CalTopo I just type the coordinate into the search bar (I don't even need a marker like Gaia) in whatever system I want, and it takes me there. Then I can add a marker or whatever I need. Super user friendly and something I wish I'd had in the past.

Some quickfire cool little things that show CalTopo's attention to detail:

• If you define an area polygon and look at its profile, it'll show you the elevation profile of the circumference
• You can bulk edit objects to move them around, change other attributes, or print individual maps
• If you have several lines for a trip, you can create a travel plan showing the different legs, coordinates, distances, elevation gain/loss, estimated travel time, etc
• Right-click anywhere on the map, choose "NOAA Forecast", and get an extended forecast for that little area

Alternatives

OnX

OnX looks pretty cool, but it has separate apps for hiking, hunting, and offroading. I can live without the offroading, but public land info is only available on the hunting app by default and would cost an extra $70/year to add to the hiking app (for a total of $100/year). That's a lot of money even compared to Gaia's many more features and layers. I tried it for a camping trip but quickly went back to Gaia.

Goat Maps

Right before checking out CalTopo I came across Goat Maps. Their founders started or worked at Gaia back in the day, and the app shows a lot of potential. But it is very new and can't compare to its competitors yet. I'll be keeping an eye out for it going forward, though I doubt I'll be switching from CalTopo. For $30/year, it's very well priced!

Conclusion

For $50/year I get a lot more value than Gaia gave me, with virtually no downsides, at least for how I use it. Time will tell how much I'll like it, but I am very optimistic that I will stick with CalTopo. Check out their help pages, too, they are very comprehensive!