Hike mapping software

[Ollybolly]

Hello,
Can anybody recommend an inexpensive software with which I could plot a new hiking route on a topographic map? For example, the kinds of maps you might see in a hiking guide book? This would be for printing and sharing, not for checking a hike just completed.
Thanks!

[Walk_fat boy_walk]

Someone on this forum very helpfully put this together: https://maps.ozultimate.com/
Can plot routes, export to google, gps etc.

[headwerkn]

Gaia GPS has some pretty flexible print functions. It's what I use to generate paper maps for trips.

[tastrax]

If you want to get into it seriously then QGIS is free software and can do lots of things and also use background maps from many states BUT be aware of copyright and attribution requirements if you are downloading data or using tile services for background maps and then printing and distributing them.

https://qgis.org/

[Son of a Beach]

As tastrax said, QGIS (or any GIS software) should be able to handle this. In particular producing comprehensive maps with scale bar/ratio, legend, coordinate system, title, etc is something that they excel at. And QGIS is free.

If you wanted to do it all on a mobile device, Bit Map can do this, but it's map (image) exports are much simpler (no legend, coordinate system or title included, and only a very simple scale bar). And I'm biased, since I'm the developer. It's not free, but is inexpensive.

Having said this, if I want to create a quality map for print or PDF (or JPEG or PNG), I usually use ArcGIS on Windows (because that's what I have at work) or QGIS (on macOS or Windows or other).

QGIS, ArcGIS and Bit Map all require you to select a Base Map to use as the background map for your output. ArcGIS has a wide variety of basemaps available by default, but it's very expensive software. I don't think QGIS has any configured by default, but it can use any of the many free maps available online that use agreed standard mapping formats (such as WMTS). Bit Map has OpenStreetMaps configured by default, but this isn't really suitable for bushwalking maps, but it can also use many of the free maps available online that use agreed standard mapping formats (such as WMTS).

Is there a particular basemap that you wanted to use? As tastrax mentioned, you need to comply with any copyright of the basemap if you plan to distribute your outputs.

[tom_brennan]

Which state are you looking to do this in?

The issue you will probably have is that if you are in WA (as your profile indicates!), and are looking to make maps of WA, WA is probably the worst state in Australia for providing publicly available base map data. NSW and Tas are excellent, the other states are at various levels in between.