US Public Lands Reviews

Less than two minutes into comparing the maps on USPublicLands to actual BLM maps it’s strikingly inaccurate! Hikers and hunters beware, USPublicLands could easily put you on private land. One look at neighborhoods in my area and it shows BLM and Forest Service land where there’s entire neighborhoods of private property with .5 to 40+ acre parcels. I want my money back.

We live in a rural area that is a mix of private and public land. I bought USPublicLands hoping it would let me know where it’s safe to hike without trespassing, but it doesn’t even show the private property that I already know of. It shows half of the neighboring subdivision and all of the private land near a local reservoir as part of the national forest. I deleted it almost as soon as I bought it because I knew it wouldn’t be useful at all here. Only consider USPublicLands if you need it in the most general sense; do not trust it if you are out on the land and want accurate boundaries.

I am upping my review to 2 stars mainly due to fact that if you are in the boonies, at least you would click the 'basic' map and 'locate' and you may know if you are trespassing or not.

The good:
- it keeps you 'legal' as much as possible; if in doubt, better backtrack thou
- low cost for doing above

Still bad:
- I think it uses Apple maps which is inferior to Google in showing all the tiny roads (off roads - even though I found many Google tiny roads that were gone when checking them on location but still showing on maps - not USPublicLands problem to fix).
- you need to download google offline maps, then toggle between USPublicLands and google maps to navigate the maze of off roads when off grid
- still misses large areas that are accessible to public but again, not big deal since there are so many public lands in western states

Ideally when in the boonies and no coverage, satellite view is critical if you want to change locations if one proves inaccessible. Being able to download ahead of time the sat view and terrain view from google then lay over the ownership map, would make USPublicLands worth a lot. I would pay easily 50$ for one stop shop. Other apps that do that are pricey and require subscription etc.

Again, great idea, I hope the developers improve it.

Initially I had some I hopes for USPublicLands, but after a few minutes of looking, I'm not too impressed. For example, it has large areas of state forest land in the Oregon coast range shown correctly, but then north of Highway 26, where there are thousands of acres of continuous forest land, none of it is shown. Also, there are no Indian reservation boundaries, which should be easy to add onto USPublicLands and would be very helpful to have visible.
I much prefer a Gaia GPS with a pro subscription, which has a Public Lands overlay that is much more comprehensive.

It’s difficult to use USPublicLands. I’m simply trying to identify land with dispersed camping, are Fish and Wildlife holdings displayed here because they have that? Also a lot of back and forth and guessing to use the color key that identifies the type of land that is overlaid. Quite regret this purchase.

I wanted to pin some of my favorite camping locations but found no way to share (with others or between different devices) or import/export. Also missing many public lands in PNW such as near port Angeles (especially state and county parks and DNR land )

I like the satellite map with the color-coded overlay. You can see streets and figure out how to get places. But there's no measurement bar to indicate how large you've made the map or how far a place is from the highway. And as others have noted, small campgrounds or BLM dispersed camping areas don't show up. I can find these on free camping apps but not on this map.

Totally worth it however I'm disappointed that it doesn't show private lands. I bought it for camping/hunting/off-roading it would be also nice to be able to use as a turn by turn navigation with the iPhone.

I purchased USPublicLands to help me find legal shooting locations on national forest land. Unfortunately, the detail and accuracy of the maps are not good enough for me to rely upon. I live next to national forest land, but USPublicLands shows that my house and all the homes around me are on national forest land, which they are not. Hopefully over time the maps will get better. Nevertheless, USPublicLands is well done. I just think it needs a better database to draw upon. I would like to see the national forest system put out more detailed information for app developers to draw upon.

USPublicLands will present you with a map that outlines public lands, assuming that you can figure out which shade of color or very limited symbology a particular spot may correlate with. It does little or nothing to provide even the most basic information on what the public land shown on the map is (name, etc.), let alone whether there is any access to it. I have rarely found it useful as a result.

This is a great app for finding public lands but isn't quite as accurate as high dollar apps like Hunt. It's a great quick reference and is super helpful when roaming around the country looking for little pockets to boondock.

Love the new app and detailed data

Seems most of the folks writing negative reviews did not read the limitations of USPublicLands . If you know what you are buying, I think you will find this is an awesome app. It's not going to find a 100 acre parcel and says that up front. A square mile is 640 acres which is the stated accuracy.

The info you get from the government sites on where exactly blm starts or even where blm land is located is very hard to pinpoint. USPublicLands allows you to search by name and while not accurate to exact boundaries is more accurate than the blm website. The maps there are very hard to read while this one is overlaid on actual maps so you can figure out directions and get where you want to go. I like that it also covers other government land for you to stay on. USPublicLands is a must have if you love camping off the beaten track.

I use more detailed apps like Gaia GPS with premium layers to do deep investigation. But USPublicLands is great to have un the toolbox for its shear simplicity. Great for quick regional overviews to gather a sense of where to more granularly investigate. Thanks for making great use of these datasets, and implementing them in a clean and elegant way. Looks great on ipad.

With this new update any review more then 6 months old may not tell the whole story. With the new update to fully use the features you need cell service. But being able to have three different view. With satellite view you can see if there are other campers there. Then turn on the overlay to see who is the land manager. Great tool.

It does does what it says it will do. I’m a boondocker and this helps me determine if I’m on federal land and what agency owns it. Used in conjunction with a camping app such as UC, you’ll be all set to head out into the wide open spaces.

This is an excellent app that makes our life so much easier. The developers have really improved it over the years.

My husband and I love 4-wheeling out to the middle of nowhere and staying a few days. Many times we’ve wondered if we were on BLM land or not. Now we know. I love that it shows your gps location on the map in conjunction with the colored map overlays. (Although I don’t believe it shows the coordinates.) If you’re looking for a basic app that shows if you’re on public land or not, then this is USPublicLands for you. If you need something that shows campgrounds and has all the frills, then look elsewhere.

When was the last time you bought a paper map from the BLM office? And then how long did you use it? USPublicLands is SO much better and allows you to see where you are on the maps combined with satellite images. Thanks for building great tools.