Avenza Maps: Offline Mapping

I have been using Avenza Maps to navigate the upper Mississippi River since last year. It provides real time GPS positioning on their map app. I downloaded individual US Army Corps of Engineers navigation river maps from their website into this app, and using my ipad or iphone, gps positions me EXACTLY where I am in the channel. I verified the accuracy to within within about 10 feet! Easy to navigate in the dark now! Thus I can see all the wing dams, and my relative position to them, and the channel is highlighted in white. The ONLY slightly negative thing is you have to manually switch between each river map when you go off the current map. I have boated now over 200 river miles using these maps with high accuracy, since a long river trip last summer. The only limitation I found is that the USACE has moved the channel slightly in some areas, and the most recent USACE navigation maps edition don’t show these changes. (NOT the apps fault)

This is one of my major hiking pre-plan go-to apps. I still eyeball it, but the store has gone all wonky somewhere along the line. Trying to download the gazetteer for an upcoming Maine trip, but it just refuses to cooperate. First, the search returns hits for Kentucky and Arkansas near the top of the results list. Under what ridiculous search algorithm would results for Maine get pushed below other states? Further, it is only returning individual Maine maps at 99¢ apiece, rather than offering the whole gazetteer bundle in one shot, like it did for other states I own. Not buying 50+ individual maps, for neither all that hassle nor the price. Tried sorting for highest price first, hoping maybe a full bundle would bubble near the top of the results list: nope. Some $7.99 irrelevant result came up, while every other search result I had just been viewing literally disappeared entirely when sorted that way. 4/5 stars: fact is, what I have from Avenza right now is awesome. I just can’t seem to do anything in terms of conveniently expanding my library, for the moment

I got this specifically to get our local National Forest maps, without knowing how wonderful it really was. I’m so glad I did. I am able to plot pins in favorite little hidden campsites, lay tracks so I can navigate back to unusual places or check how long it takes to get there. I can even add photos to those spots. Buying the national forest map so this way costs about half the price of the printed versions and with the advantage of being interactive. Another major bonus is on my phone it works off satellite and doesn’t depend on cell service. Many national forest areas have no cell service but I can still use the map. Of course it does use up your battery so there’s that to prepare for. I charge it when I’m driving with my cigarette lighter adapter. I’ve also found many local free maps (or very cheap) such as geological surveys.