Strava Adds Hiking-Focused Features Including Route Planning, Off-Route Alerts, and Improved Maps

Strava's latest update introduces tools across three categories — planning, tracking, and sharing — aimed at hikers. Free users gain access to Route Discovery for finding popular local trails and Route Builder for custom hike planning with distance and elevation data, while live elevation data and a full-screen record map are also available without a subscription. Paying subscribers receive additional capabilities including Route Saves from multiple in-app locations, downloadable routes for offline use, off-route alerts, and route-following directly on Apple Watch. On the sharing side, the update adds sticker stats, hiking-focused club support, and cinematic 3D aerial animations of completed routes, with Activity Replays — which auto-animate hikes in the feed — reserved for subscribers. Promotional materials highlight a sample route such as the Gerbode Valley Loop (8.5 km, 268 m elevation) in Marin Headlands, California, illustrating the level of surface and elevation detail now available. Map Style Improvements, which will deliver richer trail surface data and clearer points of interest like trailheads and campgrounds, are the one feature not yet live, with a rollout expected later this summer.