Breadcrumb navigation at a glance
- Shows
- Your track as a line
- Does not show
- Any map underneath
- Good for
- Following a known route
How it works without a map
The cheapest way to give a watch navigation is to skip the map entirely. Draw the loaded track as a line, put a triangle on it for where you are, and let the user match one to the other. That's breadcrumb navigation, and it's what most mid-range GPS watches offer.
Why it is enough most of the time
For following a route you already know exists, it works surprisingly well. You can see when you've drifted off the line, and off-course alerts on most watches will tell you within a hundred meters or so. It costs almost nothing in battery or storage compared to rendering real maps.
Where it stops being enough
Its limits appear the moment the plan changes. With no basemap there's no way to see the trail you're standing at the junction of, no way to find an alternative route, and no way to identify the drainage you'd have to descend if the weather turned. You can see that you're off route without being able to see anything about where you actually are.
That's the case for a watch with onboard maps, or at minimum for carrying a phone with offline maps as the tool you turn to when the breadcrumb stops being enough.
What this means when you're choosing
- Whether the device has any basemap at all, or only the line
- How it warns you off-route, since a line alone is easy to miss
- A phone with real maps as the backup, because the line is not navigation
The common mistake
Relying on it when the plan changes
It tells you whether you are on the line and nothing about what surrounds it. The moment you need to bail, find water or take a different trail, a line on a blank screen is no help at all. Carry a real map for the terrain, on paper or on a phone.
Common questions
Is breadcrumb navigation good enough for hiking?
For following a known route on marked trail, yes. It falls short when you need to improvise, because without a basemap you can see that you're off route but nothing about what's around you.
Do I need a watch with full maps?
Not if you carry a phone with offline maps as your backup, which is what most hikers actually do. Onboard maps are worth paying for if you go off-trail or want the watch to work alone.