I am looking for a navigation app that is offline and that preferably shows terrain (forests,etc.) as well. I know about google maps offline option, but I tried it and it didn’t really work, despite saying that it downloaded the map for offline use, so I just want a app that downloads the map without the possibility of it not working, not downloading enough information,etc, basically like a car navigation that already has maps preinstalled when you get it.
I use Sygic, but it doesn’t “show forests.” If you mean something that shows satellite view, don’t hold your breath–that would require vast amounts if space to store off-line. Just the “mappy” mapping is pretty hefty–you download a single state at a time, and it ranges from 15 MB for Vermont to 673 MB for California. (It has other parts of the world, too–Canada is 712 MB, and the UK 836 MB, for example. For satellite view of those areas, add maybe 2 or 3 zeros to each of those numbers (likely more.)
I’ve used these quite a bit and found the answer is, unfortunately, it depends on where you are and what you want to do with it.
For international travel, each country tends to have very specific ones that work great there. Some better for street navigation where you need a robust set of place names etc, some where you need rural info like accurate topographic and lake maps.
We did a cycling trip through South Korea and I downloaded a couple for that trip. “App A” was great for navigating the streets in downtown Seoul to find a restaurant by name, but useless if out of big cities. App B only had street names and numbers but very accurately showed bike & hiking trails and topo elevations. I’ve found similar things in European & Asian offline maps I’ve used.
If you’re in Canada, I found one that works great for remote travelling is “Topo Maps Canada” by developer David Crawshay. I use it when fishing or hiking in remote areas, it does everything I need in terms accurate lakes, topo info and features like setting route tracks etc. I don’t know if they offer a non-Canadian version.
I’ve typically download Apps to try, since even the pay options offer a free trial, but as Darren notes - I’ve yet to find any with satellite maps. I play with them to see how detailed they are: I pull an app map up, usually of a lake, and compare it to a satellite image on my laptop. Some look like rough schematics, better ones show detailed shorelines which I want. I’ve done similar checks versus a national park trail map on the park website (which I assume is accurate) versus the app’s trail map.
My other suggestion is that if you’re going to a specific area to hike (like Yellowstone etc) contact the park and ask if they have any recommendations. It seems to me these are not hard to develop and when I searched for Canadian options I came across many that were very specific to an area or even a park.