Garmin Maps on iPhone (3GS)

Good morning,

I'm using Gaia on my iphone. I'm still learning the ins and outs of it but you can download maps to the phone. Not sure about Garmin.

Gaia works great on iphone and Im sure its better than the garmin maps. You can download sat maps and the cal topo maps which are better than most topo maps

Is Gaia worth the $19.99 price when there other cheaper or "free" alternatives? I've tried many, but have not been satisfied. The reviews look good, but wanted more info from BPL'ers before pulling the trigger. I've always been a paper map/compass sort of guy, but I usually do carry my iPhone anyway.

"Is Gaia worth the $19.99 price when there other cheaper or "free" alternatives? I've tried many, but have not been satisfied."

I don't regret the purchase. I purchased the Gaia ap last winter and I've only had a few opportunities to use it. It's slower once I'm off the grid but I expected that.

I'm also a map/compass sort of guy and I was looking for something which would allow for me to plot the occasional grid when my dead reckoning has turned into reckoning (e.g. reckon we're over here or reckon we're over there?) I participated in a land nav course a few weeks ago. An instructor and I played with it and compared the accuracy to the map and to a garmin GPS. Gaia was spot on.

To me, $20 for an iphone ap was a cheaper option from a weight and cost perspective than buying a standalone GPS system. It seems to work fine but I've found that it (like any other GPS) requires some practice before taking it to the field. For someone who wants a GPS to track their movement, etc then obviously a phone battery will not be able to support that level of processing for very long.

I use an iPhone 4s so I'm not sure how well it would work with a 3GS. To be honest, I didn't realize that he iphone could work as a GPS off the grid until about a year ago.

Gaia is great! def worth the 19.99.

Its not going to be suuuper accurate like a true GPS receiver but works great for casual off trail location finding. the best i have received is +/-16' accuracy.

The map scans looks great and there is a variety to choose from including google terrain. Map downloads are very quick and not tooo big (I would say 100-150mb for ALL of Yosemite NP for full zoom.)

Use the BPL search for Gaia. You will find plenty of opinions. The creator is on this forum as well.

I started using Gaia GPS last summer and like it enough that I'm not exploring other options like I was before. I'm not sure what else I could ask for.

I use it paired with a DeLorme inReach, so it gets a more accurate GPS signal than it would from the iPhone by itself.

One thing about Gaia GPS is that there are frequent updates – they're doing a lot to continually improve it.