How Hiking America Works with Gaia GPS
A Hiking America subscription gives you turn-by-turn PDF guides and live Gaia GPS access — both included. Works on free and premium Gaia GPS. Your waypoints sync automatically when the trail changes. Here's how it all fits together.
A subscriber reaching out recently asked a question I get fairly often: How exactly does Hiking America connect with Gaia GPS? It's worth answering clearly because once you understand how the two work together, the whole navigation picture makes a lot more sense.
Here's the short version: a Hiking America subscription gives you access to two things —
- downloadable PDF turn-by-turn guides with hiker notes, and
- those same routes, waypoints, and Hiker Notes delivered directly into Gaia GPS as a shared layer.
Both are included, whether you subscribe monthly or annually.
A quick word about Gaia GPS
Gaia GPS is available in a free version and a premium version (currently $59.90/year). The main difference between the two is access to map layers. The free version covers the essentials: OpenStreetMap, Gaia Topo, and a few others. The premium version opens up a much broader library — USGS Topo, cell coverage maps, snow cover, wildfire overlays, and more. Premium also lets you download maps to your device for offline use, which matters a lot once you're in remote sections with no signal.
Both versions work with Hiking America data.
NOTE: You don't need Premium to use what we've built.
How Hiking America plugs into Gaia GPS
When you subscribe to Hiking America, you receive an invitation to a shared Gaia GPS folder. Once you accept, our waypoints and tracks appear as a layer inside your Gaia GPS app — on your phone or on the desktop.
And here's what makes this different from a static download: when we update a waypoint, add a new resupply location, or adjust a track based on a reroute or trail alert, those changes sync automatically to your account. You don't have to re-download anything. The data stays current.
Our navigation data also supports both directions of travel — eastbound and westbound — making Hiking America the only resource with complete dual-directional ADT coverage. That flexibility matters more than most people realize before they're actually on the trail.
If you've had trouble with the Gaia GPS invitation or aren't sure where to start, just reach out.
Getting connected is the easy part — and once you're in, everything else follows.