Maps of You
Data sources

If it writes GPX or KML, we read it.

A watch, a phone, a bike computer, a handheld you have not charged since 2015. Most of them export GPX, Google's tools export KML, and Waze hands over an archive of your drives — all three import as they come, one file, a folder or a zip. The guides below say which export to ask for, and where the exceptions are.

Upload your first export
Step-by-step guides
7

Step-by-step guides

Formats read
GPX · KML · Waze

Formats read

Unlimited imports
Free

Unlimited imports

WazeGoogle MapsGoogle TimelineStravaKomootApple HealthAllTrailsTrailforksGeocachingOsmAndOrganic MapsGoogle EarthOpenStreetMapGarmin Connectand any GPX or KML file
Guides

Getting the file out is the only fiddly part.

So we wrote it down, click by click, for the 7 exports people actually arrive with.

01

Strava

Rides, runs and walks — one activity at a time, or the whole account at once.

Step by step
02

Garmin

Watch and bike-computer activities, exported one at a time as GPX.

Step by step
03

komoot

Rides, hikes and walks — exported one tour at a time, always as GPX.

Step by step
04

Waze

Every drive you navigated, with the GPS trace of the roads you actually took.

Step by step
05

GPX

The universal format. If your app or device writes GPX, we read it.

Step by step
06

KML & KMZ

Google Earth, My Maps and anything GIS. The format Google still writes properly.

Step by step
07

Google Timeline

Everywhere Google Maps quietly recorded you — now stored on your phone, not the web.

Step by step
Formats

What we read, and exactly how.

01

Strava

Rides, runs, hikes and walks. Strava hands you one activity in about ten seconds, or a whole account in a few hours.

Full guide
  1. Step 1. For one activity, open its own page on strava.com and use the ⋯ menu on the activity header: Export GPX. There is no export screen in the phone app.
  2. Step 2. For everything, request the account archive from Settings, then the My Account tab. It arrives by email in a few hours.
  3. Step 3. In that archive, anything recorded in the Strava app is .gpx and imports as it is. Watch uploads stay .fit.gz or .tcx.gz, which we cannot read — export those from their activity pages.
  4. One activity per file. Each becomes an outing you can put in a poster or leave out.
02

Garmin Connect

A watch or a bike computer, exported from Connect on the web — the phone app does not reliably offer GPX.

Full guide
  1. Step 1. Sign in at connect.garmin.com on a computer, then Activities, then All Activities.
  2. Step 2. Open an activity and export it to GPX from the menu at the top right. You get activity_########.gpx, one per outing.
  3. Step 3. Not the account archive: Garmin's Export Your Data returns JSON and .fit, and we read neither.
  4. There is no bulk GPX from Garmin. If the watch also syncs to Strava, that archive is the faster route to a whole season.
03

komoot

Tours you rode or walked, one GPX at a time, from the website rather than the app.

Full guide
  1. Step 1. Sign in at komoot.com, open your profile, then Tours. Open the tour itself — a row in the list is not enough — and use the ⋯ menu beside its title.
  2. Step 2. If you are offered a choice, take the recorded tour rather than the planned route. The plan takes the road it expected; the recording takes the detour and the wrong turn.
  3. Step 3. There is no whole-account button, so a season is thirty or forty files. Drop the lot in at once — a folder or a zip is fine.
  4. A tour you planned and never rode has only the planned line. It still imports; it is just a plan, and the poster draws it as one.
04

Waze

Waze keeps a history of your drives, including the GPS breadcrumbs for each one.

Full guide
  1. Step 1. Sign in at waze.com/account and request a copy of your data. The download link arrives by email, usually within a day.
  2. Step 2. The archive is password-protected and the password comes in a second, separate email — you need both.
  3. Step 3. Unzip it first. It uses AES encryption, which macOS's Archive Utility cannot open: use Keka, The Unarchiver or 7-Zip. We cannot read the protected zip itself.
  4. Step 4. Upload the extracted folder as it is, or zip it again without a password. We find the drive files for you.
  5. A Waze export carries a summary of every drive plus the recorded trace. We draw the traces.
05

Any other GPX

GPX is the plain-text lingua franca of GPS. OsmAnd, Organic Maps, Wahoo, a bike computer, a handheld in a drawer — if it writes GPX, it imports.

Full guide
  1. Step 1. In an app, the export is behind a share or overflow control on the activity itself. Look for the letters GPX rather than for a particular phrase.
  2. Step 2. On a device, plug it in and copy the GPX folder straight off it.
  3. Step 3. Upload one file, a folder or a zip. GPX 1.0 and 1.1 both read, any namespace, and a 10 MB track is streamed rather than swallowed whole.
  4. Timestamps are optional. Without them we keep the geometry and skip the time-based statistics.
06

KML and KMZ

KML is the Google format that still behaves. Earth writes it, My Maps writes it, and every GIS tool on earth writes it.

Full guide
  1. Step 1. From My Maps, open your map at google.com/maps/d and export the whole map to KML or KMZ. From Google Earth, save or export the place.
  2. Step 2. Upload the .kml or .kmz exactly as it is — we open the zip for you. An old Takeout archive from the KML era imports untouched.
  3. Step 3. Google Timeline no longer writes KML. Timeline moved onto the phone, the web view is retired, and what it exports today is JSON, which we cannot read yet.
  4. The Google Timeline guide covers what changed on the phone, and what to do with the JSON when we can read it.
Credits

What is on the map

The land itself comes from public datasets. This page is where we credit them, so your poster carries only your map.

  • Sentinel-2 10 m Land Use/Land Cover (Esri, Impact Observatory, Microsoft)

    Used for
    Land cover; water mask for Elevation
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Printed credit
    Land cover: Sentinel-2 10 m, Esri, Impact Observatory, Microsoft

  • Terrarium elevation tiles, AWS Open Data

    Used for
    Relief and shadows in every style
    Licence
    Public sources: SRTM, 3DEP and GMTED (USGS), ETOPO1 (NOAA), EU-DEM (Copernicus), national agencies
    Printed credit
    Terrain: Terrarium DEM, AWS Open Data

  • Copernicus DEM GLO-30, AWS Open Data

    Used for
    Relief and shadows on zoomed-in maps (a region, a city, a single route)
    Licence
    Copernicus DEM licence: free for commercial use with attribution
    Printed credit
    Elevation: Copernicus DEM (ESA). Produced using Copernicus WorldDEM-30 © DLR e.V. 2010-2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014-2018 provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA; all rights reserved

  • NASA Blue Marble: Next Generation, via NASA GIBS

    Used for
    Satellite
    Licence
    NASA imagery policy: free to use, acknowledge the source, no NASA insignia
    Printed credit
    Imagery: NASA Blue Marble: Next Generation, via NASA GIBS

  • NASA Black Marble 2016 (Suomi NPP VIIRS), via NASA GIBS

    Used for
    Night lights
    Licence
    NASA imagery policy, as above
    Printed credit
    Night lights: NASA Black Marble 2016 (Suomi NPP VIIRS), via NASA GIBS

  • HydroRIVERS (HydroSHEDS v1)

    Used for
    Rivers & lakes
    Licence
    HydroSHEDS v1 licence: free for commercial use with attribution
    Printed credit
    Rivers: HydroRIVERS (HydroSHEDS v1) © World Wildlife Fund, Inc.

  • HydroLAKES (Messager et al. 2016)

    Used for
    Rivers & lakes
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Printed credit
    Lakes: HydroLAKES (Messager et al. 2016)

  • Natural Earth 1:10m countries and regions (v5.1.2)

    Used for
    The paper cut-out; tagging routes by country and region
    Licence
    Public domain
    Printed credit
    None required

  • Fraunces, Space Grotesk, Inter, Manrope

    Used for
    Poster typography
    Licence
    SIL Open Font License 1.1
    Printed credit
    None required

Before you upload anything

Know this:

  • Your location history is used for exactly one thing: making your posters.
  • It is never sold, never shared, and never sent to analytics or ad networks.
  • You can delete any import, any outing, or your entire account, permanently, whenever you like.

The rest of it is on the privacy page.

Upload your first export