How to Plan a Backpacking Trip: Skills, Tools, and Resources

Good list, several new to me. Windy looks fantastic. Another resource I have come to really appreciate and use often is CalTopo. Great mapping, both desktop and app, with very nice planning, much easier routing than Gaia, and some really useful overlay options (including Sentinel satellite imagery, weather, etc.), and of course tons of trail data. Interface not quite as “pretty” as Gaia, takes some getting used to, but worth checking out for sure.

And of course, there the sites like Alltrails (and here in the PNW, WTA.org) that are great resources for reading trip reports and getting insights from recent hikers about trail conditions.

Thanks for the tips, there are many good options for covering mapping needs here. Often trip planning also includes setting up a trip schedule/itinerary, commonly done in a separate spreadsheet or similar. I created Ambulate to combine both mapping and scheduling of trips. It is still early days, but any feedback would be welcome:)   https://ambulate.app

It’s fun testing this stuff out. I still have the old Gaia app on my phone before the subscription version. It still works fine, so I keep using it. Much better topos than All Trails, but its elevation gain calcs are wrong when looking at topo maps.

Elevation gain is interesting. My Apple Watch will give me one number. My Gaia app will give me another. And All Trails will give another. None will closely match. But All Trails will be closer to the Apple Watch than Gaia.

For multiple day trips, I’ll print out custom CalTopo maps. Great resource.