My 4 favorite iPhone apps for every outdoor adventure

Summary

Apps like AllTrails and WorkOutDoors may be almost mandatory for hikers.
Relive can help you remember rides and other long-distance activities.
Strava may be the best option for people interested in fitness and community support.

If you’ve followed my writing, you probably know that most of my physical activity is indoors — I take my weightlifting pretty seriously. But I actually do go outdoors occasionally, and I’m expecting to increase that activity as I improve my EUC skills, hopefully taking my wife and son along on an e-bike. There’s a long, winding bike trail visible from my kitchen window, and it taunts me every day.

The apps below should help with a variety of outdoor activities, with an emphasis on running, hiking, cycling, and PEVs (personal electric vehicles). You might also find them useful for casual trips, though, or even some more extreme activities like mountain climbing. Whatever your interest, play it safe — don’t rely solely on an iPhone for navigating the wilderness, and don’t let your devices distract you if there’s a chance someone could get hurt. Picking a new route on your e-bike can wait until you’ve come to a stop.

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1 AllTrails

The default trail app for many iPhone owners

AllTrails

I almost hate to recommend it (since it’s already heavily promoted), but there’s no denying that AllTrails has an outsized footprint in the iPhone world. It’s a convenient way of locating nearby trails — there are over 450,000 listed in the app worldwide. When plotting a trek, you can not only preview weather conditions, but filter for the sort of experience you’re after, whether that means stroller and wheelchair access, or shredding with your mountain bike or Onewheel. If all you want to do is walk and snap photos, that’s okay too.

Core features are available for free, but note that many others are gated behind an annual AllTrails+ subscription. These include things like offline maps, and more detailed route data, such as air quality, pollen levels, light pollution, and real-time satellite weather. Regardless of whether you pay, you should also be aware that AllTrails is heavily community-based. There’s a chance that some trail details could be out-of-date, so double check before you plan your weekend around them. No one wants to drive two hours only to find a park is already closed for the season.

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2 WorkOutDoors

Essential for Apple Watch owners

CCS

While AllTrails has some basic Apple Watch integration, WorkOutDoors makes it the star of the show. You’ll get much, much more information on your Watch this way, including health stats and vector maps, which aren’t present at all if you’re using the AllTrails watchOS interface. WorkOutDoors tracks 42 different activities, and can export them not just to Apple Health and Strava, but as FIT, TCX, or GPX files. How’s that for future-proofing?

In fact, WorkOutDoors is pointless without an Apple Watch, geared primarily towards offline fitness tracking and navigation. It also won’t help you discover new trails to explore, so it’s best used in tandem with other apps on this list. That said, if you’ve already got a few favorite destinations, WorkOutDoors’ $8 lifetime price tag is bound to be instantly appealing.

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3 Relive

When it’s the memories that count

Relive

The point of Relive isn’t to navigate the forests and mountains, or measure your long-distance running performance. Instead, it’s all about documenting the experience of a trip, illustrated by an animated video based on 3D mapping data. You can insert photos taken along the way, as well as key stats, such as the moment you hit 50mph on a downhill slope.

The app is perfectly usable for free, syncing with several data sources such as Apple Health, Garmin Connect, and the MapMy series of apps. You can pay for a Relive Plus subscription, but that’s mainly useful for inserting HD video clips, increasing the photo limit, and recording expeditions over 12 hours long. For sharing a PEV group ride on Facebook or Reddit, you’d be fine without it.

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4 Strava

Holding an Apple Watch workout up next to Strava open on an iPhone.

Strava is an institution, at this point. There’s a good chance you’re already using it, and that you’ve taken your subscription with you across multiple devices, maybe even multiple platforms. The software dates back to 2009, which is an eternity in the tech industry.

It’s not hard to understand why it’s holding out. Apart from iPhone and Android devices, it supports a wide range of tracking accessories from brands like Garmin, Suunto, Polar, Wahoo, and Google. Most importantly, Strava is even more community-focused than AllTrails — there’s a pervasive emphasis on friends, teams, and clubs, and its route discovery features include heatmaps for identifying the most popular areas. You can complete challenges, too, if achievements are your greatest motivator, such as a 100km (62.1mi) bike ride, or a 10K run.

A hand holds a phone with the Strava app displayed against a blurred grassy background.

Is Strava worth the hype?

I’ve been a Nike Run Club app loyalist since my running days first started during the pandemic. Back then, my running community consisted of me, myself, and I — but now, residing in a young city that (quite literally) runs on run clubs, I finally caved to the peer pressure and downloaded Strava after a sweaty three miles with friends this morning. I spent a few minutes tapping around and following friends, and my first thought was how intuitive the platform was. But, while that was a plus for me right off the bat, my friends assured me that it wasn’t nearly the best part. They were much more stoked about the social media component, scrolling through their feed with dozens of runs, pictures, routes, and casual captions detailing the conditions of different users’ activities. As a competitive person, that got me itching to hit the trail again and log a new activity myself. If you’re a Strava user, would you consider the social media aspect a motivating factor in your exercise regime? It

There are only two serious downsides. The first is that, while it now supports a number of activities — even stationary ones like yoga and weightlifting — it’s really built for cardio-oriented running, cycling, hiking, and swimming. You probably won’t get much out of it if you’re exploring nature for its own sake, and it’s mostly redundant without a subscription costing $12 per month or $80 per year. That’s a lot to spend when a combination of other apps might do the trick just as well, if not better.