Garmin Explore™

Garmin

About this app

Map, Track, Sync, and Share Your Trek From Anywhere
For adventure seekers, explorers and outdoor enthusiasts, the Garmin Explore ecosystem offers a complete mobile navigation solution that — when paired with compatible Garmin devices¹ — lets you map, track and navigate your trek from anywhere with unlimited cloud storage.

Garmin Explore provides basic trip planning or viewing of maps you’ve preloaded on your device. Or you can use the mobile app to pair your smart device via Bluetooth® technology² with a compatible Garmin GPS device¹, so you can do and see even more.

Access Online Connectivity
Garmin Explore provides free online access to a wide range of additional capabilities. For example, you can download detailed topographic maps, color aerial imagery and other navigation aids directly to your mobile device. The maps and navigation data loaded onto your device can be used anywhere, anytime — even when you’re out beyond the reach of cellphone towers or internet connections.

Organize Your Data with Collections
Review and edit your waypoints, tracks, routes, and activities in your library. Add them to a collection to keep all the recorded data from a certain trip together in one place. For example, if you’re taking a long trip, you can plan different waypoints, tracks and routes for each day of the trip and combine them into one collection.

Your Mobile Cloud Connection
The Garmin Explore app will send and store the waypoints, planned routes, GPS tracks and Garmin activities you've recorded in the cloud, allowing you to access and use that data on the Garmin Explore web site to plan or review your adventures. You can also sync your cloud-stored data with a compatible Garmin device. A Garmin account is needed to store your data in the cloud. Your activities (e.g., runs, walks, hikes, etc.) include data such as distance, pace, activity time, location, etc. that were recorded by your device.

More Off-grid Capability with inReach® Technology
Use Garmin Explore with your inReach enabled devices, such as the GPSMAP® 66i navigator and satellite communicator, to turn your mobile device into a true off-the-grid satellite companion. In an emergency, you can trigger an interactive SOS to the GEOS 24/7 emergency response team. Two-way messaging and LiveTrack location tracking via the 100% global Iridium® satellite network let you stay in contact globally. The Garmin Explore app allows you to access your phone’s contact list for easier messaging and sharing when connected.

What You Get with Garmin Explore
• Unlimited map downloads; access topographic maps, USGS quad sheets and more
• Aerial imagery
• Waypoints, tracking and route navigation
• High-detail GPS trip logging and location sharing
• Unlimited cloud storage of routes, waypoints, tracks, and activities
• Online trip planning

¹ explore.garmin.com/appcompatibility
² explore.garmin.com/bluetoothrequirements
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Ratings and reviews

The app is basically unusable for setting up a hike. I typically have to use another app then export a GPX file so I can import it into Explore to create a route. Route planning should be handled on the big screen, except the website cannot be used for this, and it is especially useless since it switches to a satellite view when you try to zoom in on the trail. If I didn't have an InReach or Fenix watch I would not use this at all.

An essental for InReach users that has serious problems. Earthmate wasn't the best app but I could download different maps, the current position of the inreach appeared to update and I never accidently put my phone in my pocket and had it trigger the SoS functionality. Not so with Explore. Also its constantly running some kind of synchronization service in your notification bar. So this app seems mostly like garbage that has almost no QA testing.

Phone app is difficult to create waypoints or routes on. The web page is amazing! The the only other issue that I have is that when you sync your collections from the app to your watch, it doesn't group the waypoints in their respective collections. For example, have a collection labeled "hunting" that has various waypoints. But when I sync it to my fenix 6x, it puts all those waypoints with other random saved locations in my watch. I'd like them to be grouped like they are on the app.

What's new

🐛 Bug fixes and improvements