Comparison

Parks Seeker vs NP Maps

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Parks Seeker

Track your visits to national parks across the US and Canada. Log your check-ins with GPS, earn badges, and create wish lists for future adventures. Share your progress and photos with friends.

Highlights
  • Track visited and to-visit parks
  • Detailed park information
  • GPS check-ins for visits
  • Earn badges for park visits
  • Photo gallery for check-ins
  • Create park wish lists
  • Sync across devices
Features
Read full description

How many national parks have you explored? With Parks Seeker, track your progress as you visit the national parks of the United States and Canada. View detailed information about each park, check in with your GPS location when you arrive, and share your progress, badges, and photos with friends. Parks Seeker records each park you've been to, and lets you create a wish list of the ones you'd like to travel to next! You can expand with many other types of parks, too, including the United States of America's National Battlefields, Forests, Grasslands, Historic Sites, Historical Parks, Lakeshores and Seashores, Memorials, Monuments, Preserves & Reserves, Recreation Areas, and Scenic Areas, plus Canada's National Parks and Landmarks! With Parks Seeker, you can: • Easily track your progress of parks visited and those still waiting to be explored • View detailed information about all 63 national parks • View an interactive map displaying parks and your check-ins • Check in to parks based on your current location, or create check-ins for past visits • Earn badges for different types and times of park visits • Add a photo to each check-in and view a gallery of all of your photos • Sync check-ins between multiple devices with Dropbox. • Share your visits and badges through social media, e-mail and text • Create a wish list of the parks you’d like to visit next • Locate the park closest to you based on your current GPS location Parks Seeker includes all 63 of the United States' active National Parks: Acadia · American Samoa · Arches · Badlands · Big Bend · Biscayne · Black Canyon of The Gunnison · Bryce Canyon · Canyonlands · Capitol Reef · Carlsbad Caverns · Channel Islands · Congaree · Crater Lake · Cuyahoga Valley · Death Valley · Denali · Dry Tortugas · Everglades · Gates of the Arctic · Gateway Arch · Glacier · Glacier Bay · Grand Canyon · Grand Teton · Great Basin · Great Sand Dunes · Great Smoky Mountains · Guadalupe Mountains · Haleakalā · Hawai'i Volcanoes · Hot Springs · Indiana Dunes · Isle Royale · Joshua Tree · Katmai · Kenai Fjords · Kings Canyon · Kobuk Valley · Lake Clark · Lassen Volcanic · Mammoth Cave · Mesa Verde · Mount Rainier · New River Gorge · North Cascades · Olympic · Petrified Forest · Pinnacles · Redwood · Rocky Mountain · Saguaro · Sequoia · Shenandoah · Theodore Roosevelt · Virgin Islands · Voyageurs · White Sands · Wind Cave · Wrangell–St. Elias · Yellowstone · Yosemite · Zion If you like Parks Seeker, you may also enjoy Summit Seeker—the app that tracks your progress conquering the highest point in all 50 states! Parks Seeker can use your GPS location to find the closest park to you, but the app does not require data or cellular service to use most features! Learn more at www.parksseeker.com

About

NP Maps

Access official National Park Service and USGS topographic maps for offline GPS navigation on iOS devices. Download maps for all US national parks, monuments, and preserves, along with extensive topographic coverage across the USA. Ideal for wilderness travel where internet service is unavailable.

Highlights
  • Download NPS and USGS maps
  • Offline GPS and location tracking
  • Geospatial integration with Apple Maps
  • Waypoint and route creation
  • GPX file import and export
  • High-resolution map rendering
  • GPS location and elevation display
Features
Read full description

Download official National Park Service maps and USGS topos on your IOS devices for GPS** and offline use! NP Maps app offers 150 NPS park, recreation area, monument and preserve maps for download and 60,000+ official U.S. Geological Survey topographic maps covering all of the USA and Island Territories.* Have maps anytime, anywhere, for your travels to all parks in the USA. Because many of these wilderness regions have no data service, download maps while online so you can enjoy using this app as it was intended: no internet connection. Logical and intuitive to use. Maps are geospatially integrated with Apple Maps for a familiar interface. An visual catalog of map footprints indexes an extensive library covering all the USA for you to select maps to install all with a simple touch along your planned route of travel. Purchase a subscription for unlimited map downloading. A subscription stops ads and doesn't auto-renew. The first few map download are complementary. Features: • Downloads from a library of over 67,000 maps from NPS, USGS, US Forest service. • Full rendering high resolution maps • Shows your current GPS location & elevation** • Powerful geocode search of worldwide geographic features (online) • Waypoints with AR finder • Route path creation • Track path GPS location recording** • Ruler with line + path measuring • Full app use while maps download • Footprint index with quadrangle names • Multi-datum coordinates • Automatic map download for location • Statute, Nautical, Feet, Meter and km • MGRS, UTM and geodetic Latitude and Longitude coordinates. • Import and GPX files (and KML place marks) • Integrated help manual • Email and SMS text waypoints, tracks and routes as GPX, with subscription purchase. Some park maps available for download, National Parks: Acadia Arches Badlands Big Bend Biscayne Black Canyon of the Gunnison Bryce Canyon Canyonlands Capitol Reef Carlsbad Caverns Channel Islands Crater Lake Cuyahoga Valley Death Valley Denali Everglades Gates of the Arctic Glacier Bay Glacier Grand Canyon Grand Teton Great Basin Great Sand Dunes Great Smoky Mountains Guadalupe Mountains Haleakala Hot Springs Isle Royale Joshua Tree Katmai Kenai Fjords Kobuk Valley Lassen Volcanic Mammoth Cave Mesa Verde Mount Rainier North Cascades Olympic Petrified Forest Pinnacles Point Reyes National Seashore Redwood Rocky Mountain Saguaro Sequoia and Kings Canyons Shenandoah Theodore Roosevelt Virgin Islands Voyageurs Wind Cave Yellowstone Yosemite Zion National Recreation Areas: Amistad Big South Fork Nat. River Boston Harbor Islands Chickasaw Golden Gate Lake Mead Lake Meredith Lake Roosevelt Santa Monica Mountains Whiskeytown Shasta-Trinity National Monuments: Aniakchak Bandelier Canyon De Chelly Capulin Volcano Craters of the Moon Dinosaur Devils Tower Fort Pulaski Grand Canyon - Parashant Lava Beds Mount Saint Helens Natural Bridges Organ Pipe Cactus National Preserves & Reserves: Big Cypress Big Thicket Catoctin Mountain Park City of Rocks Greenbelt Park Mojave National Historical Parks: Antietam Brown v. Board of Education Cumberland Gap Ebey's Landing Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania French Quarter Gettysburg Harpers Ferry Herbert Hoover Horseshoe Bend Kennesaw Mountain Kings Mnt Lowell Manassas Minute Man Monocacy Morristown Richmond San Antonio Missions Saratoga Valley Forge Vicksburg National Seashores, Lakeshores and Scenic Rivers: Apostle Islands Assateague Is. Canaveral Cape Hatteras Cumberland Is. Indiana Dunes Missouri New River Gorge Niobrara Ozark Padre Is. Sleeping Bear Dunes St. Croix Nat. Parkways & Trails: Blue Ridge Parkway George Wash. Mem. Parkway Potomac Heritage Nat. Scenic Tr. * Not preloaded with maps. WiFi recommended. Downloading queue does cap at around 25 maps. ** Continued use of GPS running in the background can dramatically decrease battery life. Location feature may not function on iPod and wifi-only iPad devices without GPS hardware.

Screenshots

Parks Seeker4 screens
NP Maps4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: NP Maps at none against Parks Seeker's shown. Parks Seeker's advantage is review sentiment (93% vs 75%) and iOS requirement (12 vs 14.0). On price, rating, ratings volume and update cadence there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Parks Seeker sells 10 one-off in-app purchases and NP Maps sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.6 for Parks Seeker against 4.6 for NP Maps. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 90 and 196 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 93% of Parks Seeker's written reviews are positive against 75% of NP Maps's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Parks Seeker ships an update every 6 weeks, NP Maps every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 21, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Parks Seeker versus NP Maps: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterParks SeekerNP Maps
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (90 ratings)4.6 (196 ratings) — better
Positive reviews93.3% of reviews — better75.0% of reviews
Number of ratings90196 — better
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeks — betterEvery 3 months
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFreemium
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS12 — better14.0
Further details — not scored
Size91 MB16 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMark SandellDelcartes LLC

Customer experience

Parks Seeker

All ratings90 ratings
Positive94.4%
Neutral1.1%
Negative4.4%
Written reviews15 reviews
Positive93.3%
Neutral0.0%
Negative6.7%

NP Maps

All ratings196 ratings
Positive94.4%
Neutral2.0%
Negative3.6%
Written reviews16 reviews
Positive75.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative25.0%

In-app purchases

10 purchases

Parks Seeker

One-time10
  • National Battlefields$0.99
  • National Recreation Areas$0.99
  • National Lakeshores/Seashores$0.99
Show 7 more
  • National Preserves & Reserves$0.99
  • National Historic Sites$1.99
  • National Memorials$1.99
  • National Historical Parks$1.99
  • National Forests$2.99
  • National Monuments$2.99
  • All Bundles$12.99
3 purchases

NP Maps

One-time3
  • 90 Day$1.99
  • 1 Year$5.99
  • Lifetime$23.99

Questions

Is Parks Seeker free?
Parks Seeker is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is NP Maps free?
NP Maps is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Parks Seeker or NP Maps?
NP Maps is rated higher. Parks Seeker averages 4.6 out of 5 from 90 ratings, while NP Maps averages 4.6 from 196 ratings.
Do Parks Seeker or NP Maps have ads?
Parks Seeker shows ads; NP Maps does not.
Which is updated more often, Parks Seeker or NP Maps?
Parks Seeker ships an update every 6 weeks, and NP Maps every 3 months. Most recently, Parks Seeker was updated on October 24, 2026 and NP Maps on October 21, 2026.

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