Route Planning on Google Earth or similar
 

what programs has anyone used in the past to plan trips on a google earth style maps? looking to find something where I can save points as I find dirt roads on google maps

cheers

Very curious - what did you find that worked for you?

I use Gaia GPS along with Google Earth Pro, and Garmin's Basecamp, sad though it is.

Since you ask!
Google earth has some usefulness but we should remember that it is a collection of satellite (way out of date) images, drawings, photographs, screenshots etc all stitched together with very clever software.

For finding interesting villages, features, places, wild camps, fabulous local restaurants and accomodation etc, what works for me:
is the purchase of quality topography maps both electronic and paper combined with route planning on my sat-nav set up with the way I wish it to calculate and guide me.

There are two alternatives to Google Maps that are specifically good for route planning:

* https://www.viamichelin.com/ - has a motorcycle option, cost calculator for fuel based on your vehicle, options for accommodation, etc.

* https://trips.furkot.com/ - quite powerful potentially, but kind of fiddly. Takes a while to get your head around it.

Obviously I was aware of the satellite images and photos but I wasn’t aware of drawings being used - I hadn’t spotted any that I realised was a drawing. Can you point me to somewhere that has that - I am curious as to what it looks like?


EDIT:
I have been doing a little digging prompted by Toyark’s post and when you look for it there it is - on Wikipedia at the end of the entry for Google Earth it reveals that in Japan they have replaced some satellite imagery with wooden block print from the 18th and 19th century. Fascinating - thanks for flagging it up. Time to start looking on Google earth

How useful is Gaia GPS outside of North America?

I've seen many use Gaia GPS to find back roads, etc in Canada and the US, and it appears to be quite good for that. However, I have yet to hear of it being used outside North America.

Sorry, no idea as I've only started using it recently. Tried a few others, and for me here in BC, Canada it's fantastic, far superior to others. I can add a number of layers, e.g active fires, snow cover, BackRoads Map Books trail maps, snowmobile maps, hiking maps, topo maps in feet or metres etc. Can even have several of them at once, just adjust the transparency of each. It's terrific for TRAILS, which is what the OP asked about. Maps.me and others are great for ROADS. GaiaGPS does also work on roads.

I found this: https://help.gaiagps.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003639068 on a quick search, where you can add a TMS Map Source to Gaia. They're everywhere, so quite doable.
Past that, what do others find?

And of course, what mapping app works for you - that's a question for everyone!?

For foreign usage, try this link in Madrid: https://www.gaiagps.com/map/?loc=12....TopoRasterFeet
and move your mouse around until it highlights a track - those are added by users.
Or this in the Pyrenees: https://www.gaiagps.com/map/?loc=10....TopoRasterFeet
Note there may be issues as I've got my own settings which may affect it. A Gaia GPS basic account is free - try it out in your area.

Ive been using https://maps.openrouteservice.org/ for a long time - From Spain all over Europe to Georgia and the West Africa route to Cape Town and back up the East Africa route to Alexandria with better details and routing than Google Maps and downloadable.

Downloaded files can easily be used with OsmAnd+ so no Internet access needed.

Looks good and works here in BC too. Thanks for letting us now!

It also depends what typ of roads are you going to travel on. For asphalt roads and routes that are available on google maps for example can be found on TomTom Mydrive. There you can add waypoints or numerous destinations can get it in a gpx format.
However Tom Tom navigation will not work for offroad riding for eample TET in Europe and for that you need open source maps for example Osmand which caters to both on road and offroad riding.

Summary: Map the route on mydrive Tom Tom and use Osmand on your phone to navigate.

Viewranger to plot routes on either Open Street Maps or Open Cycle Maps.

Good for finding trails, though I should say when it comes to what the trail is and whether you can ride it legally, you need be ready for anything when you actually get there!

Ed

I have been building trans continental offroad routes from satellite images for 12 years. Initially by google earth and later using a extremely good Russian software called SAS planet , which allows you to switch a particular view from google earth to google maps, to Bing (microsoft) satellite images to ERSM sat images to OSM maps ... to check and verify and cross reference what is on maps vs what are 3-4 different sat images of the same thing. I planned the 18,000 km Sibirsky Extreme 2012 route (preview link in my footer), offroad farm tracks from the EU to Magadan on SAS Planet. This frankly, is the benchmark in route drawing by sat image. To install it, download it, unzip to whatever folder you like, and click on the sasplanet.exe file. http://www.sasgis.org/programs/saspl...net_201212.zip

I get an error that SASPlanet is unable to load maps, do you've got any idea where I can get them from? I tried looking on the SASGis website but my Russian is a bit rusty (and non existant).

Download patch
https://gisenglish.geojamal.com/2020...load-maps.html

or pick the lastest version
https://gisenglish.geojamal.com/search/label/SASPlanet