TopoKin

Lose the bars. Not your people.

TopoKin is a topo map app for heading out where the cell signal doesn't, with your kin. Everyone in your group shows up on the same map. Messages and positions travel over the internet when there is some, and over small, inexpensive Meshtastic radios when there isn't. Kin without a phone (or who'd rather not use one out there) can carry just a radio, and still show up on your map.

Who are your kin?

Whoever you share the outdoors with: family, friends, kids, fur-kids, the hunting buddy, the grandparents waiting at camp. If they're out there with you, they're kin. (Fur-kids count literally: a tracker radio rides fine on a dog's collar, and they show up on the map like everyone else.)

Get started Download for Android Setting it up for your group?

What it does

• Offline topo maps. Download the areas you're heading to: contours, trails, forest roads, public land, springs and peaks, plus optional satellite photos and a 3D view. They work with no signal at all.
• Your kin on one map. See where everyone is, how far, which way and how much climb. Tap someone for terrain between you, or message them.
• No signal? Radios. Pair a Meshtastic radio with your phone and the group keeps sharing positions and messages radio to radio, miles from the nearest tower.
• Trackers for anyone. Hand a radio to a kid, a friend for the day, a grandparent who'd rather not fiddle with an app, or clip one to the dog: no phone needed. Their dot is on every phone in your group. Ring it, message it (it shows on the radio's screen), and get an alarm if they wander too far, go quiet, or press Help.
• Rally points. Pick a spot and every phone and every tracker's screen shows it with distance and direction.
• Waypoints, places and drawings. Mark spots, share them with the group, draw on the map together.
• Triangulation. Two compass bearings on smoke, an animal or a shout, from two spots, and TopoKin shows where it is.
• Private. Your group's positions and messages are end-to-end encrypted. No accounts, no ads, no tracking. See Privacy.

Where it works

TopoKin is made for the United States for now:

• Offline maps and satellite photos are built from U.S. sources (USGS terrain and place names, BLM and Forest Service lands and roads, USGS aerial photos), so they cover the U.S. only. Elsewhere you get the online map.
• Radios are set to the U.S. radio band (915 MHz). Radios used in other countries need their own band, so don't use TopoKin's radio setup outside the U.S.
• Distances and heights are in miles and feet.

The guide

• Getting started: install, join your group, get maps.
• On a trip: the map, people, messages, waypoints, rally points, bearings.
• Radios and trackers: pair your radio, hand out trackers, alerts, a lost radio.
• For the organizer: create the group, invite your kin, set things up.
• Help and troubleshooting
• Printable tracker card to keep with each tracker radio.
• A radio for the car