There is now a wealth of useful apps for overlanders and off-road travellers, and it’s hard to keep track. IGN Mapas de España is an interesting app for off-road tours in Spain. IGN stands for Instituto Geográfico Nacional, that is, Spain’s National Geographic Institute.
When you open the app for the first time, a lot may look familiar. That’s because this app is based on the well-known navigation application OruxMaps. The IGN Mapas de España app uses maps from the National Geographic Institute and other information sources, such as Spanish cadastral information.
The free app is intended for hiking, cycling or other outdoor activities and can also be a useful app for off-road tours in Spain, as it provides maps with the level of detail of hiking maps.
What else can the IGN Mapas de España app do?
The app has an offline mode, meaning you save the maps for individual regions locally ahead of your tour and can then use them even without mobile reception. Saving, displaying and following tracks, creating waypoints, distance measurements, viewing route profiles and much more are also possible. The gpx, kml and kmz formats are supported. And of course you can always see exactly where you are, with details of coordinates, direction, speed and altitude. The menu-guided operation and functions are basically very similar to OruxMaps.
Incidentally, via the menu you get straight to hiking-route downloads for various regions of Spain. A handy feature for those of you who occasionally swap the 4×4 for hiking boots on the way.
Further information
You’ll find more information on the app on the Spanish Geographic Institute’s site. The institute also provides other interesting apps, for example on hiking routes along the Camino de Santiago or on seismic activity in the region. All usable on Android devices, and some of the apps are also available for iOS.
You’ll find numerous other guides and information on the subject of navigation here in the magazine. And if you’d like to learn and discover even more about navigation, then perhaps one of the Matsch&Piste off-road navigation courses is something for you. Take a look.
Offroad-Navigations-Kurse – Navigieren lernen bei Matsch&Piste