My favorite hiking app, AllTrails, is releasing a massive summer update to celebrate 15 years of literal and digital trailblazing. I had the chance to check out all of the forthcoming features during a press preview last week in New York's Catskill Mountains.
Most notably, this included a hands-on demo with the app's powerful new custom route-building tool, which is something I suspect will appeal not only to hikers, but backpackers, trail runners, mountain bikers and more.
6 new AllTrails features for summer 2025
Combined, the AllTrails Summer 2025 update includes six new features to help you better plan and prepare for your next big outdoor adventure.
Some of these improvements, like access to on-trail Points of Interest, will be available to all users, whether you pay $2.99 a month/$35.99 annually for AllTrails Plus or have the free base plan.
New AllTrails Premium membership tier: Peak
AllTrails is debuting a new 'premium' membership level called Peak in June 2025
However, access to other feature upgrades will cost a little extra.
AllTrails is debuting a new 'premium' membership level called Peak in June 2025.
Priced at $79.99 a year, it includes everything you get with the Plus plan, along with exclusive access to arguably the three most powerful new tools: Custom Routes, advanced Trail Condition reports and Community Heatmaps.
Read on for details on all six new AllTrails features, including which membership levels can access which, when they'll be available and how they work.
New feature No. 1: Custom Routes (Peak members only)
As noted above, the coolest feature I tested out, Custom Routes, is exclusive to Peak members. Straightforward to use, it lets you build and edit a custom hiking route in just a couple of taps.
Users simply select a starting point anywhere on the map, followed by an end point. You can also begin your route creation journey by using an existing trail and expanding it.
Want to shorten your route, reduce elevation or add a point of interest? Go right ahead. AI-backed 'smart routing' has you covered. There's even an option to make the route 'more scenic.' Who wouldn't want that?
Once you've edited your Custom Route to a point of satisfaction and saved it, you can take a little tour of your creation. Just like you can with a standard AllTrails trail map, users can view recent photos from their Custom Route and even preview it in 3D.
Better yet, Peak members can share their newly minted route with friends and family, no paid AllTrails plan required for the recipient. In use, it took me less than a minute to create an epic 11-mile day-hike near Hunter Mountain, New York, complete with picturesque stops and manageable elevation gain.
Though this was just a short demo on an AllTrails loaner phone, I'm stoked to put Custom Routes to better use once it fully launches. I think it will be particularly useful for when I have friends and family come visit me in Seattle, Washington, where the mountain hiking is primo but can also be challenging/intimidating.
Beyond hiking, I could see this tool being attractive to a wide range of outdoor enthusiasts, too. After all, AllTrails supports a surprisingly large number of activity types, from snowshoeing and cross-country skiing to climbing and even pushing a stroller.
Later this year, expect additional support within Custom Routes for multi-day hikes, including the ability to create segments and waypoints.
New feature No. 2: Trail Conditions (Peak members only)
AllTrails already offers users some basic info on trail weather conditions, but that data only gets updated once a day. Meanwhile, dynamic seasonal photo galleries offer hints at what to expect on the ground.
Now, AllTrails is taking weather predictions a step further with advanced Trail Conditions. Think of it like a weather app within the AllTrails app with details on temperature, precipitation, snow depth, mosquito activity and air quality.
(Those dynamic snow depth insights will be especially useful for folks like me who enjoy springtime mountain hikes.)
Later this year, Trail Conditions will additionally show terrain charts that break down a trail based on which portions are, for example, gravel versus dirt. Also in the works, mud condition reports.
Weather data is updated hourly, and users can check out condition predictions up to a week in advance. 15 different weather factors pulled from over 10 million datapoints power Trail Conditions. More importantly, you'll never have an excuse for leaving your best hiking boots or that much-needed pair of crampons at home again.
New feature No. 3: Community Heatmaps (Peak members only)
Wouldn't it be nice to have insights into which trails see the most foot traffic when planning a hike? With the new Community Heatmaps tool, AllTrails is delivering just that.
This visual representation of trail usage was originally developed for AllTrails' seriously awesome (and free) Public Lands Program, which is built around providing AllTrails' data to community land managers to help improve access and better allocate resources.
Pulling from a year of visitor trail data, darker lines within the feature reflect a path more traveled, while lighter lines reflect the opposite. This makes Community Heatmaps not just useful for avoiding crowded trails and seeking out hidden gems, but also for pinpointing potential obstacles or challenging portions of a trail where the shade abruptly switches from dark to light.
New feature No. 4: Offline Areas (Peak and Plus members)
A few months after last summer's big AllTrails update, Plus members gained the ability to download and save maps of national and local parks worldwide for offline use. Now, Peak and Plus members will be able to download and save trail info for any area of their choice.
How big a region can you download? That depends on how many trails are in your selected area, but Alltrails reps tell me to expect a cap of roughly 500 trails per download.
When you consider that these downloads not only give you turn-by-turn navigation for all of the hikes in the selected region but also details on elevation, photo tours, 3D tours and more, this new functionality is all the more impressive.
New feature No. 5: Outdoor Lens (Peak and Plus members)
This was one AllTrails app update I did not see coming, which is ironic, given its name.
The new Outdoor Lens feature, available for Peak and Plus users, was described to me by AllTrails as a 'visual search tool to explore the natural world.' Users can either snap photos from within the AllTrails app or submit them from their camera roll for identification and info.
When it initially launches this summer, the Outdoor Lens will provide details on everything from trees and mushrooms to flowers and insects. No cell service? No problem. The feature stores your log of shots and processes them as soon as you come back online.
Everything you've photographed for identification gets saved into a virtual logbook, which you can reference at any time from within the app, like the outdoorsy nerd you are. Plus, it sounds like Future iterations of the Outdoor Lens feature may add visual identification for mountain peaks and other scenic points of interest.
New feature No. 6: Points of Interest (all users)
Last but not least, with the 2025 summer update, all AllTrails users will gain access to Points of Interest, which includes not only scenic photo spots but also places like picnic areas, public bathrooms, campsites and even caves.
Each point of Interest has instructions on how to navigate to it, along with a description, recent photos and even reviews. With 500,000 POIs and counting, including 200,000 spots for scenic photos, this is a welcome free addition to the app (and I can't wait to read all the stinky pit toilet reviews).
When and how can I try AllTrails Peak membership?
The latest AllTrails features will begin rolling out to users this week. If you want to learn more about Peak, consider signing up for early access on the AllTrails site.
At $80 annually, the membership is a little more than double that of Plus. Will the exclusive Peak features prove worth it? My initial impressions of Costum Routes and Heatmaps suggest the answer is yes, but I look forward to testing the entire Plus experience further.
Users who want to try out the new Peak features before committing will be able to sign up for a one-week trial once the new membership tier fully launches in June 2025.
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