Going Digital in 2022 - Maps and Books
One outcome of lockdown has been the number of people getting into walking in their own local area. In our area, 'Northamptonshire Walks' users and numbers of routes have mushroomed, while new websites have also increased our local walking resources. These new leisure walkers are not hardened hikers, but everyday people looking to enjoy the countryside, often using their phones for navigation instead of map and compass or gps. Use of the OS app has seen a massive increase.
As DWG, we've watched this boom with interest. As the pioneers of gps navigation and now phone app navigation, we are moving our emphasis to make sure we cater for this new phone app generation.
Digital editions of Tour & Trail Maps
We are making Digital Editions of our Tour & Trail Maps available in three different formats that will cover 99%+ of gps software including phone apps. The easiest way to use a digital map is through an in-app purchase so we have been updating our maps, and relationships, with Outdooractive (ex Viewranger) and Locus Map. We will also be looking to increase the number of phone apps that we work directly with during 2022.
The three file formats of digital Tour & Trail Maps we offer cover:-
- Custom Map kmz file format for Garmin units and software, and Google Earth
- sqlitedb file format used by a wide range of phone apps
- Oziexplorer being an 8bit colour png image plus a zip file of calibration files
We already have 15 Tour & Trail Maps converted to these digital editions. See the full list HERE.
Which Phone Apps do you use? What do you think of them?
OS and Walking World apps are popular with UK walkers, but they only work in UK so if you're visiting one of our Tour & Trail Map regions, you will need a different phone app. We already work directly with Outdooractive and Locus Map. We would like to know which apps you use and what you think of them. AlpineQuest seems interesting. Oziexplorer Android is on David's list. Compegps is another.
Compendium of Walking Adventures
Fuerteventura Compendium of Walking Adventures is the first of our new style digital publications.
Rhodes Compendium of Walking Adventures should follow in April along with Corfu Compendium of Walking Adventures. Our combination of digital book (150-200 pages in Kindle or pdf formats) plus the gps navigation files for all the huge range of Walking Adventures, make these new books incredible value at just £6.99.
Compendiums are completely green; there is no paper use or printing, no trucking or storage of printed books,
and no postman staggering round with his load of Walk! books. It’s all digital, quick, green and efficient.
Digital Downloads: please Order and Download Carefully
We all have phones (well, almost all of us), and phone use is everywhere, giving the impression that we can do anything on our phone/tablet.
But, there is one very important task that can be tricky on a phone; unzipping zip files. You’ll find that a computer will handle this job more easily.
Our ‘Waypoint Files’ zips that go with our Walk! books are only small zip files, though are best handled when downloaded to a computer and unzipped before being transferred to your device. Digital Tour & Trail Maps are much bigger, from 15Mb to over 100Mb, requiring longer download times and several are two map sheets in a zip file.
So to avoid problems please download your digital information onto your computer, not your phone/tablet. Also when ordering digital maps we send your download link from www.dwgwalking.co.uk so make sure your email system will accept emails containing a hyperlink from this address before ordering.
Happy adventuring
David & Ros
