Hiking apps for Catalonia, Spain
Are you ready for your next adventure, your hike exploring the mountains, coasts or vineyards of Catalonia? After a few years of hiking experience here I want to share what I have learned. Prepare for your next hike in Catalonia, Spain with these helpful apps and websites!
Find a hiking trail in Spain
In North America I found AllTrails to be a great app. Over here in Spain though, locals use Wikiloc to scout out their trails, read reviews, get directions and record their hikes. The apps have a similar look and feel, and of course sometimes overlapping content. But I found that Wikiloc has a larger collection of Spanish hikes than AllTrails.
Hiking by train
No car? No problem! Rodalies, the train company of Catalonia has their own website for hikers! Here you can browse hike, where you do not need a car to get to the trailhead. In fact, many of these will take you from one train stop to the next. So you don’t have to go out and back the same way. This wouldn’t be possible if you had to go back to fetch your car!
The site is called Senderismeentren and comes with its own map of hikes. The names of the trails are numbered and the exact same as listed on Wikiloc, making it even easier to plan. Especially if you are plannning a hiking trip from Barcelona, bookmark this website!
You can download the train schedules from Rodalies in PDF format.
Offline maps from Google
If you do not want to use your data for navigation on the trail or are concerned about network coverage, you can use downloaded maps from google. If you have never done this, you may find this step-by-step guide on how to download maps from google maps helpful
You can download it the day before your hike and delete it afterwards, to not use up too much storage on your phone. Your GPS will locate you even if you turn off your data, so you always know where you are.
Another hack for using offine maps is to mark waypoints along the hike by dropping pins. You can add comments like “left at the fork” or “right for shortcut, left for scenic route” as applicable. This helps enormously to not get lost where there are many trails in the same area.
Record your hike
Of course, you can use your fitness app to record your steps, elevation gain and distance walked or trace your steps on a hiking app. If our choose to publish it on Wikiloc, or any other app you may use, the community will be grateful for your input. For example, how long did it take you to complete a hike?
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What apps do you use to plan your hike?
Hopefully, this guide has given you some helpful input for planning your hikes in Catalonia. If you have any questions or additional tips, please comment below!
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