Garmin Announce NOTRAILS subscription features

Following the success of the AllTrails app and Garmin’s widely loved, revered and accepted Connect+ subscription paywall, the company has released its new, subscription-only NoTrails feature. To access this feature, you have to pay about £70/$70.

In return, users (not customers) in the UK and most of Europe seem to get access to no trails whatsoever. That’s not wholly true if you look in some of the remote parts of the Alps you can find some. Here is a selection from Austria. Handy if you’re going to the Alps in Austria…anywhere else…less so.

How it works

1. You pay some money and subscribe.
2. You decide where you want to go hiking
3. You navigate to the trails section on Garmin Connect (here – web or app)
4. Zoom in on the area you visit and then look at the map.
5. The experience is kinda like just looking at a map. One with no trails on. It’s a very nice map, though
6. Enjoy!
7. Garmin thanks you for your money.

But Seriously

Here is where I would say “but seriously”. And then get all serious. But honestly, folks, this isn’t very good. By introducing the Garmin Connect subscription, you’ve just hacked off half of your customer base by breaking an unspoken promise to give free software in exchange for highly priced watches. Then the very first feature you introduce is pants. Well, it’s pants unless you live in Austria or the USA.

I looked at many trails in some of the more mountainous areas of the USA.

Is it just me? Am I missing something? Is this how you run your business? Do you get your products/services working before you sell them?

what is the value proposition?

There are a squillion trails worldwide.

The value proposition is charging for access to a curated selection of trials. I expect a curated list to include every ‘official’ national trail and a decent number of non-duplicated, approved user-generated ones. That would take time and effort and would be worth something. Garmin appears not to have put in the time and effort.

Take Out

Look, I haven’t got that much of a problem personally if Garmin adds a whole new class of route, which they have, and then charges for it.

What I have a problem with is its half-assed nature.

• The routes they include need to add value – the value is in the curation and the coverage.
• It’s hard to introduce a feature like this globally. I’m in the UK. Garmin knows that. By default, I shouldn’t be able to see the Trails option in Garmin Connect, as Garmin knows my country isn’t yet covered. Maybe I’m going on holiday? OK, I can turn the feature on if I’m a paying user of Garmin Connect.

https://test.kothea.com/2025/04/26/cancel-garmin-connect-heres-how/