Really Useful Travel Apps for iPhone: City Maps 2Go

Our 3rd installment of the iPhone app series, following DB Navigator and CouchSurfing, is about an extremely useful application called CityMaps2Go.

CityMaps2Go

CityMaps2Go is an application which allows iPhone users to view maps offline, a worthy replacement for Google Maps when you don’t have WiFi or 3G. It’s a perfect way to ensure you’ll never get lost in an unknown city.

Having paper maps can help, but when you arrive in a city, it can be difficult to find exactly where you are on the map. This can become even more difficult when there is no index of streets, which is often the case on free maps. CityMaps2Go solves that problem. Just download the map before you arrive, run the app, the GPS geolocalizes you and hop! You’ve found your way!

I was shocked, while writing this article, to find that City Maps 2Go is no longer free, while the “lite” app version doesn’t allow you to download maps. For the iPhone version, it costs €1.59 to download the application, which allows you to also download all available maps. The Android version is free, but only for the first 5 map downloads. Every map after that is paid, so you can prefer the offline Google Maps.

With the application, you can:

• Download the maps of 78000 cities and regions
• Pin points of interest
• Research street names and places
• Add notes
• Download Wikipedia’s city article (surcharged)

All data comes from OpenStreetMap, a great, free mapping system created and updated by users.

I regret to inform you that route calculation is missing from this application, but that’s really the only drawback.

And yes, there is a download fee (but €1.59 for 7800 maps is hardly something to complain about), but I promise I’ll keep looking for an alternative free version!