A ZhuiZhui Guide

Most of Taiwan's best hiking routes lose signal the moment you enter the mountains. If your map app normally needs an internet connection to display the map, you may well be staring at a blank screen once you're up there. This guide walks you through the full "download the offline map before you go" prep process, start to finish, using nothing but the ZhuiZhui app.

Why you must download the offline map beforehand

The "offline feature" in most map apps is really just a cache of the map screenshots you've already browsed — the moment you try to zoom or pan into an area you haven't seen before, you get a blank patch. A genuinely reliable offline map downloads the complete terrain data to your phone's storage, so it works for zooming, locating and searching regardless of whether you have a connection. That's exactly why ZhuiZhui uses a vector map engine — once downloaded before you go, the entire trip needs no further reliance on a network signal.

Step 1: Choose the map data for your region

First, figure out where this trip is taking you:

  • Taiwan: Use "LuMap," an offline terrain map long maintained by Taiwan's hiking community, covering contour lines and trail network nodes — the most complete choice for planning routes on Taiwan's 100 Peaks and suburban trails.
  • Overseas: Use OpenAndroMaps, downloaded by country or region — hiking or trail running abroad gets the same offline experience as in Taiwan.

Step 2: Download on the "Map Management" page

  1. Open ZhuiZhui and tap the "Map Management" tab in the bottom navigation bar (the page title shows "Offline Map Management").
  2. For Taiwan, just tap "LuMap"; for a trip abroad, tap "Add Country," choose the matching continent, then pick your region from the list.
  3. Before downloading, the app shows the file size for you to confirm (the full Taiwan LuMap is about 298MB, with a lightweight ~168MB version also available) — confirm to start the download.
  4. Downloads run in the background, so you can leave the Map Management page to use other features without interrupting it.
ZhuiZhui offline map management page, download LuMap and add overseas country map data
Offline map management page: downloading, updating and switching between downloaded map data all happen on the same page

Step 3: Remember to "Apply" once the download finishes

Finishing a download doesn't mean the map page switches to it automatically — go back to your "Downloaded Maps" list, find the one you just downloaded, and tap "Apply" so the map page actually shows that offline terrain map. If you want to switch to a different region later, just go back to this list and apply the other one — no need to download it again.

Don't forget: download the trail POI data

Beyond the terrain map itself, ZhuiZhui also has a Taiwan-specific trail database built in, covering peaks (positions corrected against the 1971 list selected by Lin Wen-an and others), 1st–3rd class triangulation points and benchmarks, mountain huts and emergency shelters, and water sources like springs and man-made wells. This data can be downloaded or updated with one tap from the "Trail POI Data" card on the "Map Management" page — it covers Taiwan only.

For route planning reference only — mountain conditions change and data cannot update in real time, so please assess risk yourself and prepare a proper hiking plan.

Pre-trip checklist

  • Confirm the offline map for your destination region is downloaded and "applied"
  • For Taiwan routes, also download/update the trail POI data
  • Make sure your phone is charged; for multi-day trips, bring a power bank
  • If you have an existing reference route (GPX/KML), import it to compare before you go

Once your offline map is ready, the next step is importing an existing route track file into ZhuiZhui to compare: How to Import GPX / KML Track Files on Android.