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downloaded maps for off line walking use

Question: What map source did you use for Your recent experience with downloaded off line iPhone maps for walking use in German communities. On our previous Europen visits we have been downloading for off line use Google Maps. Checking to see if we continue this for our September visit to Germany (Berlin, Dresden, Erfurt, Munich, Hamburg & Cologne). Thank you for your response

Posted by
9460 posts

As another European resident, let me add to MarkK’s plug for HereWeGo. It is my go-to for navigation for walking anywhere. Download the map(s) you need at home on WiFi before your trip (you can also take the time to make collections for each city, plugging in your lodging, sites you plan on visiting, restaurants that interest you, etc) and then it is all available OFFLINE when at your destination.

I don’t travel without it. I find it an excellent travel tool.

(Those who have heard me sing the praises of CityMapper might be surprised to hear that when using CityMapper, I almost always change over to Here for the walking portion of any journey. I find it far superior — so much easier to read — for following directions on foot.)

Posted by
5687 posts

Google Maps "offline" works great for driving directions but not for walking or public transit directions, last I checked. You need mobile data for that - or need to start your journey while on WiFi. You still can't get real-time arrival and delay times for public transit without mobile data, no matter what app you use.

SIM cards are cheap. Last trip to Italy, 2GB of data cost me all of 9 euros on my Dutch Vodafone SIM - more than enough data for a ten day trip. It was well worth the money spent.

Posted by
2084 posts

@Doug.

Are you Apple or Android?

I am human.

And I use on mobile primarily Android.

In Android's Play Store the Here WeGo App has 4.4* and GM has 4.3* but this is fully unimportant to me, also the amount of million ratings. German history is a good example that millions can be really wrong, also some millions of people in other countries today - but no politics ;-)

My main reasons why I suggest not to use GM:
- GM simply does not find streets accurately. You can try several streets occuring more than once in Berlin. Example: search for Klopstockstrasse and you will get the one in 10557 Berlin but we have two others.
- Another critical issue for me is that sights can simply be moved to fully wrong places. You will not know how hard I was fighting to place Frankfurter Tor in Berlin back to where it belongs.
- The link to Google Earth is often not helpful. In Berlin you have completely old material for new quarters such as around main station or around new Mercedes Platz.
- GM shows public transport even if it is full day on strike.
- Fake entries by users: Take Grips Theater entry here, but Grips Theater is located there - 5 kilometres away.

Could add more things.

Posted by
101 posts

Markk—any suggestions for this question Here WeGo walking map on iPhone—tried their map in our San Luis Obispo California for this mornings walk and it the App selected and illustrated a route for my choice of “from” and “to”. However, I could not find a way on the phone to change the route which we walked that was pedestrian friendly and away from the Here WeGo that was selected near a lot of traffic—we walked our choice of route and the curser did illustrate where we were walking, but away from Here WeGo’s selected route—on phone, tried to drag to make route change while on line—at home set same route up on Mac Book Pro and can grab route Here WeGo’s selection to change to my choice between the selected route start and finish—only had walking activated—later today activate car driving feature for automotive drive trial on iPhone and it worked well—thank you for your previous help with this App-we did work on some Hamburg trials,l and that seemed good, Thank you, Andy