Sideroads

Prepare for adventure!

What is Sideroads?

Sideroads is the definitive trip planner and trip companion app for the obsessive trip planner. It is designed to be the place where you gather and organize all the information you collect during trip planning. When you’re on the board, everything will be readily available at your fingertips when you need it most.

Have you ever found yourself writing down addresses or GPS coordinates for some obscure point of interest? Saving off GPX or KML files to guide you to that unknown wonder in the wilderness? Writing down a detailed day-by-day plan to make the most of your hard-earned vacation time? Wishing you could visualize your entire trip in one place? If so, this is the app for you: Sideroads was designed by obsessive trip planners to help you prepare for your own adventures.

Sideroads is currently available for Windows and Android. Both versions have equivalent capabilities and are fully functional for both planning and using on the go.

What it is not

Sideroads does not book your flights for you, or provide a list of the world’s train and ferry schedules, or scan your email inbox for logistics, or apply Big Data algorithms to your private data. It does not count your footsteps or monitor your heart rate. It is not a replacement for Yelp, TripAdvisor, or for the many wonderful travel websites and apps with which modernity has gifted us. Nor can it read your mind. You already have apps for all that.

The price tag

Sideroads is free and fully functional. Sideroads Premium provides access to premium features: Trip Sync and Sharing, Track Sync and Sharing, File Sync and Sharing, and Offline Maps.

Sideroads Premium is currently a monthly subscription. Users who acquired Premium when it was a one-time in-app purchase will continue to have Premium status.

Planning a trip

Your adventures begin by creating a new trip from the Trips page. You can choose to have some logistical details pre-created for you here by entering your flight airports and selecting a rental car. Or if you’re road tripping from home, just leave these details blank and create the trip, which will start from your home location. The default home location can be changed in the Settings page.

As you plan your trip, you can use the Calendar page to add activities for the trip, in a convenient day-by-day schedule.

If you’re flying, renting a car, staying in hotels or rental accommodations, or simply eyeing some restaurants or stores to visit, you can use the Logistics page to store all the information you’ll need during the trip. When you add restaurants and stores to the Logistics page, you can then reference them by adding dining and shopping activities in the Calendar page. If you’re driving an RV or car-camping along the way, simply create a new hotel at your intended parking location to indicate where you will be that evening and morning. If you have multiple boondocking candidates for a given day in your trip, you can add all of them to the list of hotels. The first hotel on the list will appear in automatic activities in the calendar, and you can change the order in the Logistics page.

The Maps page gives you a whole-trip visual overview, as well as a day-by-day view of where you’ll be. It can also be used for simple navigation.

During your trip, the Weather page will tell you what kind of weather to expect at each location you’ll be visiting on your Calendar.

Activities

Activity types include hikes, drives, bike rides, tours, snorkels, dives, or even meetings with long-lost relatives. You can set times and durations on activities, allowing you to figure out whether a given day might be over-booked (aren’t they all?) You can even mark activities for sunrise or sunset, and the activity time will be set automatically depending on your location and the time of year.

Activities can be color-coded to reflect different categories: for example, you might use green for must-do activities and yellow for activities that you might engage in if you’re making good time that day.

Activities can be moved up and down through context menus, or by dragging and dropping on Windows. If your trip needs to be re-ordered, days can be moved up or down, and you can add or delete days or change your dates entirely by editing your trip.

Automatic activities show up to fill in the gaps in your day. For example, if you have a rental car and will be visiting several points of interest during a long day of driving, the app will automatically add drive activities between the respective locations. Automatic drives will capture turn-by-turn directions as well as the expected distance and duration of the drive. In cases where cell phone connectivity is limited and you don’t have offline maps, those directions could come in handy.

If desired, automatic activities can be disabled by editing the trip and toggling the automatic activity setting to off.

Alternative days

For any given day in your calendar, you might have several different itineraries in mind depending on unplanned circumstances. Maybe the weather will turn bad. Maybe that scary-but-exciting road through the National Monument hasn’t been graded lately and your rental car doesn’t have 4WD. Maybe your wife or children are tired after that long hike the previous day. Things happen, and you won’t really know for sure until you’re there.

To be even more prepared for such eventualities, you can easily create alternative days from the Calendar page. Each alternative day is effectively its own independent, parallel schedule for the day, and you can easily switch between them just by tapping on the tab. That way you can easily prepare for eventualities like rainy days and tired limbs.

Attachments and URLs

If you’re anything like us, you won’t be sticking to the marked trails. You’ll be exploring seldom-visited places, while preparing your own routes using Google Earth or AllTrails. Your may not even find your hikes on HikingProject or WikiLoc. And you may not have a cellular signal once you’re there.

Sideroads facilitates this kind of adventure travel by allowing you to attach files to activities. This allows you to save topo maps, Google Earth snapshots, or track files representing where you want to go. The app has built-in support for GPX, KML and KMZ files, which you can attach to any activity and visualize later. This is most obviously useful for hiking, but can also come in handy for custom road trip routes. If Google Maps isn’t giving you the scenic route driving directions you want, you can add a custom drive activity and just attach your own track file.

You can also attach URLs to activities. This is helpful for sites that provide directions or good descriptions of activity like hikes, allowing others reviewing your trip to read the same reference material you did. Keep in mind that attached URLs will only work when your device is online. For sites you’ll want to consult offline, print them as PDF files and add them as attachments.

On Windows, full drag and drop is supported for attaching files from your local disk, as well as images from web browsers.

On the shelf

The Trips page provides two different locations to store trips: the main trips pivot and the shelf pivot.

The main trips pivot is for trips that have been scheduled for a particular date, as well as trips that have already taken place.

The shelf pivot is for trips that you are planning, but which don’t have a concrete planned date. Days are simply displays as “Day 1” or “Day 2”. Unless you’re planning something very specific, you’ll probably prefer to write down your initial trip plan here, and then schedule the trip when you’ve decided on some dates.

Trips can be moved back and forth between the two pivots. Moving a trip from the shelf requires you to pick a start date.

Import / Export

While you may plan your trip on one device, it’s likely you’ll be viewing it on other devices during your trip. To facilitate this, you can export trips from the trips page, transfer the file to another device, then import the trip there. If you have purchased Sideroads Premium, you can use cloud storage to easily sync trips between devices.

Bucket Lists

The Bucket Lists tab of the Trips page provides space to store activities intended for the future but which don’t necessarily form part of a trip, such as loose long-term plans, bucket list items in different locations, or weekend activities. Each bucket list can contain multiple folders to categorize these activities. Multiple bucket lists can be created and selected. The same lifecycle and versioning actions that can be applied to a trip can also be applied to bucket lists.

Stores and restaurants can also be added to a bucket list folder, and will be available as selectable options when creating a new shop or dine activity inside a trip. This is useful if you find yourself traveling frequently to the same locations and want to save some favorite logistics for repeat use. A store or restaurant selected in this way will be copied to the trip as a separate instance, so subsequent changes made in the bucket list won’t reflect directly in the trip.

Maps

Native Maps

The following native map providers are supported on Windows:

  • Bing Maps, likely to be deprecated in early 2026 due to Microsoft.
  • Google Maps: Road, Terrain, and Satellite. To enable these maps, the user must bring their own Google API key and Map ID.
  • Azure Maps: Road, Terrain, Terrain 3D, Satellite, and Satellite 3D. To enable these maps, the user must bring their own Azure Maps subscription key.
  • Mapbox: Standard, Outdoors, and Satellite. To enable these maps, the user must bring their own Mapbox API access token.

Note: each of these providers has their own distinctive mouse controls.

The following native map providers are supported on Android:

  • Google Maps: Road, Terrain, and Satellite

Map Tiles

In addition to native maps, the app also supports displaying raster base map tiles from various sources. Tile sources marked with a * require an API key provided by the user in order to function.

Not all of these sites have the resources of Microsoft or Google, so please use these tile sources gently.

Additional tile sources are available on an experimental basis for premium users, including various CalTopo tiles.

Map Widgets

The following widgets are displayed on a map screen:

  • Layers – Click or tap to select a base map layer.
  • Overlays – Click or tap to select overlay Layers.
  • Tracking – Click or tap to toggle tracking. Right click or long-press to raise tracking options.
  • More – Click or tap to display additional map options.
  • Compass – Click or tap to restore a northerly bearing. On Windows, mouse over to view additional rotation buttons. On Android, double-tap to rotate clockwise.
  • Pitch – Click or tap to toggle between a top-down view and a 45-degree view.
  • Center – Click or tap to center the user’s location on the map. Double-click or double-tap to enable centering as the user moves.
  • Zoom In/Out – Click or tap to zoom in or out on the map.

Map Overlays

Sideroads supports displaying map overlay tiles from various sources. Overlay tile sources marked with a * require an API key provided by the user in order to function.

Precipitation:

Clouds:

Weather:

Public lands:

Details:

Custom Map Tiles

There are many sources of raster map tiles out there, and not all of them are supported by this application. The settings page provides the option to add new custom map tile services. The tile server’s URL must be provided in the following format:

https://tile.openstreetmap.org/{z}/{x}/{y}.png

In this example, a, b, and c are alternate hosts, whereas z, x, and y are the map coordinate variables required to locate a tile.

The app provides a testing function to ensure that the URL is working. It will also attempt to detect the minimum and maximum zoom levels for the map tile service, as well as the tile size. These tests may not be 100% reliable, so please consult the documentation for the tile service in order to set these values correctly.

Custom map tile services can be used just like the app-provided map tiles mentioned above. They can be edited and deleted from the settings page using the “manage map tiles” option.

Offline Maps

If you have purchased Sideroads Premium, you can download small quantities of offline map tiles and map overlays from the tile services mentioned above.

There are three ways to download offline maps:

  1. Download offline maps for an entire trip. This will download tiles for all locations referenced by activities holding track (GPX, KML, or KMZ) attachments. This does not include automatically-generated driving directions.

  2. Download offline maps for an activity. This will download tiles for the activity’s location, as well as any track attachments. This can be performed manually for any activity, including automatic driving directions.

  3. Download offline maps for the visible area of a given map view. The area must be smaller than approximately 25 square miles.

In general, the app will download tiles from zoom level 0 (the entire planet) up to zoom level 17. Some sources may have policies around using a lower zoom level for offline storage, and the app will respect those when it is aware of them.

The specific base map and overlay tile sources downloaded can be selected from the Settings page. Changing tile sources will only affect future offline downloads. Active offline tile downloads and tile storage can also be managed from Settings.

To view downloaded tiles on a map, select the “Go offline” option (on Windows) or the “Offline” slider (on Android) from the map layer dropdown menu in any map view. This will allow you to select an offline tile source from the same menu, while hiding sources that are not available offline. You can undo this step by selecting “Go online” from the same menu.

Needless to say, if you’re going to rely on offline tiles for navigation, please make sure they are available and meet your needs while you still have access to the internet.

Trip Sync

If you have purchased Sideroads Premium, you can sync your trips to cloud storage. This provides a convenient backup mechanism, and it also allows you to easily sync trips between your devices. This feature essentially automates exporting and importing trips between devices.

In order to use Trip Sync, you will need to sign into a cloud storage provider: currently Microsoft OneDrive is supported. To sync between Windows and Android devices, you will need to purchase Sideroads Premium in both the Microsoft Store and the Google Play Store. Once you have Premium on all relevant devices, simply sign in using the same Microsoft account and you will be able to sync your trips.

Uninstalling the app or wiping a device will not delete trips from cloud storage. However, explicitly deleting a trip on a sync-enabled device will also delete it in the cloud, and that deletion will propagate to all synced devices. Deleting a trip directly in cloud storage will also cause it to be deleted on all devices.

When a trip is present in the cloud, it will be displayed with a cloud badge icon in the Trips page. When a trip is present in the cloud without a local copy, the trip will be displayed slightly grayed out. In that case, as well as when a trip has a newer version available in the cloud, a download button will be available to update the trip. Pressing that button will install the newer trip and overwrite any local changes. This means you need to be a little careful about versioning your trips if editing on multiple devices.

When a trip has local changes that can be uploaded to the cloud, an upload button will be available for the trip. Pressing that button will upload a copy of the local trip to the cloud as the latest version. Once other devices sync that change, they will present a download button for the trip, allowing them to install the latest version.

Trips are never uploaded or downloaded automatically. It is up to you to determine which device has the latest version and ensure important data is not overwritten when syncing. To protect against data loss, the last three versions of a trip are kept in cloud storage, and can be recovered manually if necessary.

Trip Sharing

In addition to syncing trips between your devices, you can also share trips with other users. For this to work, both you and those users will need to have purchased Sideroads Premium.

Trip sharing is performed from the Sharing page. You can share all of your trips with another user, or just an individual trip. You can share trips just for viewing, or allow users to edit and upload new versions of trips. You can also stop sharing trips, or reject trips that have been shared with you.

It is important to note that when sharing a trip with another user, you must reference that user by the email address associated with their Microsoft account. This is because like Trip Sync, Trip Sharing is implemented by sharing OneDrive folders.

Bucket List Sharing

Bucket lists are shared using the same mechanism as trips. When one user shares a bucket list with another user, the recipient will be able to switch to that bucket list in the Bucket List tab using a dropdown (Windows) or a bottom tab (Android).

If the user was already sharing all trips with the recipient, the user may need to upload a new version of their bucket list in order for the recipient to see it for the first time.

Permissions

When signing into Microsoft, the app will request the following scopes in order to perform its work:

  • User.Read: this allows the app to read and display basic profile information, such as the user’s name and profile icon.
  • Files.ReadWrite.AppFolder: this allows the app to upload and download the user’s trips and tracks using an app-specific folder on the user’s OneDrive.
  • Files.Read.All: this allows the app to read trip files shared by other users.
  • People.Read: this allows the app to autocomplete contact names/addresses when the user shares trips with others.

The app will never use these privileges to do anything other than the tasks mentioned above.

Tracking

Sideroads includes an easy way to track and record your location as you go about your activities. This allows you to backtrack to a previously visited location during a hike or a drive, as well as review your routes later.

To enable tracking, simply press the tracking button in any map view, or use the toggle button on the app’s hamburger menu. When tracking is enabled, your route will be recorded continuously by the app as a background service. When viewing any map inside the app, the current track will be displayed in bright red. Previously recorded tracks are displayed using a darker shade, and will be visible on the Tracking page map view during the same day they were recorded.

While hiking or driving, you may wish to record the location of points of interest in your current track. You can do this using the Add Waypoint button on the map toolbar. You can also rename waypoints you created earlier by tapping them.

If tracking is disabled for two hours, or if the distance between the last tracked point and the next point is greater than half a mile, the app will save the current track and begin a fresh track. This can be triggered manually by selecting the “save track” option from the map page’s menu. The current track can also be discarded by selecting the “clear track” option.

Saved tracks are kept in your device’s database, and can be viewed from the Tracking page’s Tracks pivot. Tracks are displayed year by year and are kept until you delete them. Uninstalling the app or wiping the device will delete these tracks.

When you’re done with a hike or a drive, you will have to turn tracking off manually. The app can’t read your mind! If you forget to turn off tracking, you might end up recording something you hadn’t intended, such as a drive after a hike. You can fix that by saving the track to your desktop, editing the track to remove extraneous track points, importing the track back into the Tracks pivot, then deleting the original track.

It is worth noting that generating a track might cause your mobile device to consume a little more power than usual.

Files

The tracking page also allows you to create track files stored inside the app. You can tap a track file to display it in a map. The primary use of a track file is to add waypoints. For example, if you enjoy picking mushrooms in the woods, you can use a file to store your favorite mushroom locations.

On Windows, you can also edit the track file and manually add tracks if you wish. You cannot record a track into one of your track files.

Track Sync

If you have purchased Sideroads Premium, the app allows you to sync your tracks to cloud storage. This provides a simple backup mechanism, and it also allows you to easily sync tracks between your devices.

In order to use Track Sync, you will need to sign into a cloud storage provider: currently Microsoft OneDrive is supported. To sync between Windows and Android devices, you will need to purchase Sideroads Premium in both the Microsoft Store and the Google Play Store. Once you have Premium on all devices, simply sign in using the same Microsoft account and you will be able to sync your tracks.

Uninstalling the app or wiping a device will not delete tracks from cloud storage. However, deleting a track on a sync-enabled device will also delete it in the cloud, and that deletion will propagate to all synced devices. Deleting a track directly from cloud storage will also cause it to be deleted on all devices.

Tracks are uploaded and downloaded automatically, as well as on demand using the sync button on the Tracks page. In addition to recording your movements to a track, you can also manually add tracks to the Tracks page. These tracks must have a time and date associated with each track point in order to be imported successfully.

Track names will default to the names of the origin and destination of the track. Tracks can be renamed to something more specific or more relevant in the Tracks pivot.

File Sync

File Sync is similar to Trip Sync. Files are uploaded and downloaded manually, and it is up to you to ensure the right version is uploaded to the cloud.

Track Sharing

In addition to syncing tracks between your devices, you can also share your tracks with other users. For this to work, both you and those users will need to have purchased Sideroads Premium.

Track sharing is performed from the Sharing page. You can select users with whom to share your tracks. Those users will be able to view your tracks, but not edit them.

It is important to note that when sharing a trip with another user, you must reference that user by the email address associated with their Microsoft account. This is because like Track Sync, Track Sharing is implementing by sharing OneDrive folders.

File Sharing

You can share your files with other users with Microsoft accounts, similar to Trip and Track Sharing. You cannot share individual files.

Track Editing

Sideroads for Windows comes with a built-in track editor. You can create new GPX track files and edit existing files. The following functionality is available in the editor:

  • Create and delete individual tracks
  • Create, insert, move, and delete trackpoints
  • Create, edit, move, and delete waypoints
  • Generate trackpoints along known routes (requires a free OpenRouteService API key)
  • Generate trackpoints back to a previous trackpoint
  • Reverse the trackpoints in a track
  • Delete all trackpoints in visible area (Del)
  • Delete trackpoints from a drive at the end of a hike
  • Duplicate a track
  • Undo (Ctrl+Z) and redo (Ctrl+Y)

The following tracks can be edited:

  • Track files opened from a local file on disk
  • Track files attached to an activity, day, or logistics resource
  • Track files recorded by the user

If a KML or KMZ file is edited and saved, the file will be saved as a GPX file.

Off-track Alerting

When displaying a map that contains one or more tracks, Sideroads allows you to enable off-track alerting. When enabled, the app will alert you when one of the following events occurs:

  • You are off-track because you have moved a substantial distance from any displayed track.
  • You have re-approached one of the displayed tracks.
  • The track you are following changes to a different track.

The app will use voice and vibration to alert you. The alerting icon on the map toolbar will transition from green (following a track) to red (off-track).

Weather

When your trip falls within the range of a weather forecast, Sideroads will look up the upcoming weather for each location in the trip.

The following weather providers are supported in the app. Providers marked with a * require an API key from the user in order to function.

Safety first!

Sideroads is not intended to be mission-critical software, and should always be used with a contingency plan in mind. By using Sideroads, you explicitly agree that we are not responsible if something goes wrong on your trip.

If your life depends on some part of Sideroads working perfectly at crunch time, please have a plan B available. Never have a single point of failure when lives are on the line!

Some suggestions:

  • Export your trip as a Word document. Even if Sideroads crashes or doesn’t run, you might be able to find important trip data in that document.
  • Save key attachments, including any images and track files you’ll be using to navigate. Ensure you have an alternative app that can view them in case of necessity.
  • If you’re using your phone for navigation, carry extra batteries and at least one extra phone. It’s all too easy to drop a phone at the wrong time.
  • Make sure you test absolutely everything prior to setting out.

Making planning easier

To make the planning process easier, you can generate activities and logistics resources based on information from certain supported web sites.

On Windows, sites can be dragged and dropped from a web browser onto the Calendar page, the Logistics page, or the Bucket List page. On both Windows and Android, sites can be shared to the app from a web browser. A site URL can also be used from the new activity dialog.

When a supported site URL is provided, using one of these mechanisms, the app will read information from the site and automatically create activities or logistic resources for your trip. For some hiking sites, the app will automatically save track files as attachments.

Some hiking sites are also supported for use with search: when creating a new hike, you can search by name and then select a result from one of the sites. You can also select attachments (usually track files) and URLs from other sites in the search results, which will be aggregated onto the new activity.

The following sites are currently supported for item generation. Sites marked with * support search. Sites marked with # require a username and password provided by the user in order to function.

Hikes:

Tours:

Drives:

Hotels:

Hikes, Tours, Hotels:

Locations:

Credentials

You can enter your site credentials in the Settings / Credentials tab for a number of services and sites. Signing in allows the app to use these services on your behalf. Needless to say, the app will store these credentials securely encrypted, and will keep them private for you. Also needless to say, you are responsible for any costs you incur using these third party services.

The following in-app functionality is enabled by adding your credentials:

Google

A Google API key is needed.

Enables the following functionality:

  • Native Google Maps support for Road, Terrain, and Satellite maps (Windows only).
  • Google Map tile support using any map provider.
  • Google Air Quality heatmap tile overlay.
  • Generate driving directions using the Google Routes service.
  • Geocode locations using the Google Geocoding service, e.g. when setting locations in the location picker
  • Geosearch gas stations and rest areas using the Google Places service.
  • Search certain sites that lack a built-in search mechanism: e.g. Bluugnome.com.
  • Generate elevation data for trackpoints created in the Track Editor using the Google Maps Elevation service (Windows only).

The Google API key you provide must enable the following APIs:

  • Air Quality API
  • Custom Search API
  • Directions API
  • Geocoding API
  • Maps JavaScript API
  • Maps Elevation API
  • Map Tiles API
  • Places API (New)
  • Routes API

You will need to enable billing on your Google Cloud account. At normal personal usage levels, your bill for these services will generally be free.

To enable Google Maps as a map provider, a Google Maps Map ID is also needed. The map should be a vector map with tilt and rotation enabled.

Azure Maps

An Azure Maps key is needed.

Enable using map tiles and weather map tiles from Azure Maps. Enable the Azure Maps Weather provider.

OpenWeatherMap

An OpenWeatherMap API key is needed.

Enable using weather and weather map tiles from OpenWeatherMap.

HERE

A HERE REST API key is needed.

Enable using map tiles from HERE Map. Enable the HERE Destination Weather provider.

Mapbox

A Mapbox API access token is needed.

Enable using map tiles from Mapbox.

Thunderforest

A Thunderforest API key is needed.

Enable using map tiles from Thunderforest.

OpenRouteService

An OpenRouteService API key is needed.

Enable the Follow Known Routes button in the track editor on the Windows app, allowing you to automatically generate tracks along known roads or hiking routes, instead of adding trackpoints by hand.

Browserless

A Browserless API key is needed.

Enable searching and generating activities and resources from a number of websites.

Hiking Project

A Hiking Project account is needed.

Sync your private recorded GPS tracks from Hiking Project. They will be displayed in the External Tracks section of the Tracking page.

Road Trip Ryan

A Road Trip Ryan account is needed.

Enable generating hikes and canyoneering activities from RoadTripRyan.com.

Gaia GPS

A Gaia GPS account is needed.

Enable generating hikes from public tracks on GaiaGPS.com.

Geocaching

A Geocaching account is needed.

Enable generating hikes from geocaches on Geocaching.com.

OnX Maps

An OnX Maps account is needed.

Enable generating hikes from OnXMaps.com.