I’ve tried using it over the years but I never liked it because there was no information. So last night I looked at my local city and there is almost no information at all. I spent a few hours last night adding buildings and restaurants and removing incorrect items. It was actually kind of fun and therapeutic and I plan to do more of it tonight. My girlfriend thinks it’s dumb and I’m wasting my time because Google maps and Apple maps and Bing maps exists but she just doesn’t understand open source.
Edit: Apologies, I just realized this question is not Linux specific.
I’ve been editing OSM for years. (896,339 edits in 3,427 changesets, apparently!) For me, it’s all about the free data. I once got a thank you note from someone who worked for a city with a particularly large municipal park. I’d added almost all the trails to the park and other information, and they’d used it to produce a printed map for the general public. Exactly the kind of thing I’d hoped for!
Personally, I do a lot of dualsport motorcycling and most backcountry maps around here are subpar. I map tons of trails and 2track and put them on the Garmin so I know where I’m going.
OSM is also great in lots of Europe–tons of detail.
JOSM is great.
Someone just recommended Organic Maps for the phone–it’s way snappier than Google Maps, but still not great with finding addresses.
What an awesome story to hear. I’ve been playing around with Organic Maps on my phone. I’ll have to look into JOSM.
I’ve tried putting osm maps on my Garmin with limited success, how can I go about doing that?
There’s a list of ready-made providers of gmapsupp.img files.
I’ve had the best luck with BBBike and OpenMapChest for getting pre-built map files.
Basically you have to get one of these files with all the data you want in it and then stick it on your SD card on the GPS. (The GPS should mount like a thumb drive. If you already have a gmapsupp.img file on there, you might want to back it up in case things go sideways.) Some GPSes support multiple gmapsupp.img files, but a lot don’t. Here’s a thread on merging .img files.
When I needed super fresh data, I’d download raw OSM data from Overpass and use mkgmap to build the gmapsupp.img.
That’s really cool to hear about the parks. Most of the parks around here are pretty well mapped out. Presumably the local community is pretty strong.
I really want to produce something for my city’s NET and BEECN emergency response programs. They already have a few different maps, but not one unified map. My ideal is a map that could be taken offline or printed to spec.
https://streetcomplete.app/ is a fun way to contribute to OSM and do something else instead of just “walking” if you want to get outside a bit.
This is what I use! It’s like RPG quests in real life but about really boring subjects. Eg. What surface is the pavement on a nearby street. Or is there a bin next to this bus stop
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/StreetComplete recommends GoMap!! and some others. Maybe one of those is also great.
I’ve heard good things about this app: https://apps.apple.com/app/id1621945342
This is actually amazing. I’ve done a bit of editing as I play Pokémon Go which uses OSM for the background map. I got fed up of just looking at roads so I mapped in all the buildings, shops, parks etc near me.
This gamifies walking and exploring which I love!
Just to piggy back on here Every Door (https://every-door.app/) is so awesome if you wanna add/update shops and other small points of interest on the go. Highly recommend it.
OSM is huge for backcountry. Hiking trails, skiing, etc. There is nothing better.
Yeah. Story time:
In the England we have ancient rights-of-way laws but a lot of private landowners try to block footpaths that cross their land. If a landowner can argue a footpath hasn’t been used in (I think) two years they can have it removed, but in 2025 all the existing footpaths will be made permanent and indelible except with explicit local government permission so between now and then a lot of landowners will be rushing to get paths removed.
I’ve made a point of walking every footpath in my area and making sure they’re all documented on OSM. If any of the landowners try to get a path removed I have my GPS tracks as proof of use.
Edit: FWIW, I find OSM to be the best map for rambling. Google and Apple don’t come close and OSM even gives Ordinance Survey a run for it’s money.
Was that plan scrapped from what I can tell? https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-60418555 Is there still risk of the right of way paths being fenced up/privatized fully?
