Garmin Connect+ Gets New Trails Feature, Its Best Idea Yet?

Forbes

22-05-2025

Garmin update visual
Garmin
Garmin has announced the first major expansion of Connect+, with what is probably one of its most useful features yet, Garmin Trails.
Garmin's Connect already lets you create routes to send to compatible watches for offline navigation. Garmin Trails offers suggestions for routes, based on where you point the map view. And you need a paid subscription to use it fully.
This is not dissimilar to what's on offer in other popular platforms, Komoot and AllTrails perhaps most notably.
While Garmin's existing free-to-use route planning can already choose the hiking/running/cycling line based on the most popular roads and trails, Garmin Trails provides extra options.
For example, you can choose routes based on there being waterfalls or forests. And you have greater control over the difficulty of the route, how long it's likely to take and the total ascent or descent. Or if it's dog friendly.
It's a terrific idea for a new feature in theory, and once again it is of course a shame it's locked behind a paywall. However, DC Rainmaker has had an early preview of the platform, and his experience suggests Garmin Trails still needs plenty of work.
He found many spots were bereft of routes, and that some of the ones he found make no logistical sense. Even in areas where there are some great bike routes.
This highlights the strength of a long-extant platform like Komoot. It has gained a sense of richness over time, through user reviews, photos and comments on routes, which are also user-made.
While Garmin Connect has an absolutely massive audience, it doesn't have this built-up content to fuel Garmin Trails. And judging by thematic bent of Connect+, it seems reasonable to assume the current routes are AI-derived using mapping and popularity information the platform already has access to.
Garmin says the routes will be accompanied by the 'latest community reviews with photos and descriptions.' But you understandably are not going to get many of those on day one.
One piece of good news is Garmin Trails isn't solely behind a Connect+ Paywall. It's also part of Outdoor Maps+, an older membership that costs $49.99 a year (to Connect+'s $69.99).
Garmin Trails may be excellent one day, but you may need patience to get there.
Garmin is also, as it has done in the past, trialling something else with the Venu series.
Venu 3 owners will have the option of paying for access to features that would usually be restricted to the golf-focused Garmin Approach series, through a Garmin Golf membership.
They include full CourseView course maps, and the PlaysLike stat, among other features. This moderates distance stats based on how the terrain changes the ball's behaviour.
Garmin Golf costs $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year.
I'm not much of a golfer, but this Garmin Venu 3 seems like a pure positive move considering the Garmin Golf sub already existed. And since the launch of the Vivoactive 6, which is cheaper but has better features in some areas, the Garmin Venu 3 has been begging for a boost like this to stay relevant.