Garmin Announce NOTRAILS subscription features
Following the success of the AllTrails app and Garmin’s widely loved, revered and accepted Connect+ subscription paywall, the company has released its new, subscription-only NoTrails feature. To access this feature, you have to pay about £70/$70.
In return, users (not customers) in the UK and most of Europe seem to get access to no trails whatsoever. That’s not wholly true if you look in some of the remote parts of the Alps you can find some. Here is a selection from Austria. Handy if you’re going to the Alps in Austria…anywhere else…less so.
How it works
- You pay some money and subscribe.
- You decide where you want to go hiking
- You navigate to the trails section on Garmin Connect (here – web or app)
- Zoom in on the area you visit and then look at the map.
- The experience is kinda like just looking at a map. One with no trails on. It’s a very nice map, though
- Enjoy!
- Garmin thanks you for your money.
But Seriously
Here is where I would say “but seriously”. And then get all serious. But honestly, folks, this isn’t very good. By introducing the Garmin Connect subscription, you’ve just hacked off half of your customer base by breaking an unspoken promise to give free software in exchange for highly priced watches. Then the very first feature you introduce is pants. Well, it’s pants unless you live in Austria or the USA.
I looked at many trails in some of the more mountainous areas of the USA.
Is it just me? Am I missing something? Is this how you run your business? Do you get your products/services working before you sell them?
what is the value proposition?
There are a squillion trails worldwide.
The value proposition is charging for access to a curated selection of trials. I expect a curated list to include every ‘official’ national trail and a decent number of non-duplicated, approved user-generated ones. That would take time and effort and would be worth something. Garmin appears not to have put in the time and effort.
Take Out
Look, I haven’t got that much of a problem personally if Garmin adds a whole new class of route, which they have, and then charges for it.
What I have a problem with is its half-assed nature.
- The routes they include need to add value – the value is in the curation and the coverage.
- It’s hard to introduce a feature like this globally. I’m in the UK. Garmin knows that. By default, I shouldn’t be able to see the Trails option in Garmin Connect, as Garmin knows my country isn’t yet covered. Maybe I’m going on holiday? OK, I can turn the feature on if I’m a paying user of Garmin Connect.
https://the5krunner.com/2025/04/26/cancel-garmin-connect-heres-how/
Last Updated on 29 January 2026 by the5krunner
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tfk is the founder and author of the5krunner, an independent endurance sports technology publication. With 20 years of hands-on testing of GPS watches and wearables, and competing in triathlons at an international age-group level, tfk provides in-depth expert analysis of fitness technology for serious athletes and endurance sport competitors.
Garmin Trails is also part of the Outdoor Maps+ subscription. If you have that subscription you can use the Garmin Explore app to search for trails, save them and sync them to a compatible device.
I could see this potentially being a cool feature someday, but who’s brain-dead idea was it to release this completely-unbaked product for public consumption before it has any real use or functionality?
Oh yeah, the Connect+ team, I forgot. That’s just what they do.
Coverage in parts of the us isn’t bad. I live in a small town of around 8k and there are 32 marked trails within 5 miles. They made some interesting loops but forgot some really popular ones too. It could be a good feature by they need to really up the numbers. They must have the heat map data to do it
Yes that was my assumption.
the trail rating are all zero-stars at the moment. presumably that and the route description will improve over time with community suggestions
So I just discovered something interesting… I do not have a Connect+ subscription, not even using the free trial, but I seem to be able to use Garmin Trails just fine, without any restrictions. I think it’s because I have a Maps+ subscription.
If my discovery is correct and not just some error or me not understanding something, then this is great news for those of us who already had a Maps+ subscription and are refusing to get Connect+.
Oops someone above already made that discovery first haha. Well I can at least validate that they seem to be correct!
Also, in my area at least, there seems to be lots of trails, I’ve got at least a dozen within a few miles of my house. Seems to be a regional thing at this point. No idea where they’re scraping the trail data from, HikingGuy on YouTube speculates that Garmin scraped the trails from AllTrails just without any of the reviews or other user content.
Yes it would be from Maps+
Hoewver, I believe anyone can use the feature right up to the point of sending the route to the device. you need Connect+ (or Maps+) for that. @HikingGuy found some wierdness if you have an inReach subscription
Nada…..Nothing….I´m not sure what he value would be in the Nordic countries as there are NO trails at all!?
Zooming in on Zealand and part of Skane in Sweden, it doesnt find a single trail.
There’s plenty of value to Garmin. 😉