NomadTracks for kayaking, canoeing & sup
On the water, your track is the trail
Paddling has no trail markers. In a cypress maze, a reed belt or a braided river delta, the recorded track is your way home: your own wake, drawn live on the map. NomadTracks records it quietly while you paddle — and the photos you take along the way are pinned right onto the line.
Follow your wake home
The live track line means turning around is simply retracing the orange line — no guessing which gap between the trees you came through.
Waterproof workflow
Phone stays in the dry bag: record from the Apple Watch, or use the Lock-Screen stats — no unlocking with wet hands.
Photos become places
Every photo taken while recording can pin itself to the track — the heron tree and the perfect lunch beach keep their coordinates.
From the field
Real recordings, real places
Tap a photo or map to open the full track story — route, elevation profile and GPX download included.
A kayak tracker that earns the dry bag
Kayak tracking has different priorities than trail sports: speed over ground (current and wind honesty), distance actually paddled versus the straight line, and the put-in you need to find again from the water. NomadTracks records all of it with the phone sealed away — start from the Apple Watch, glance at Lock-Screen stats through the dry-bag window, and pin the portage or the take-out as a POI without unlocking anything. Sea kayakers can switch the whole app to nautical units — knots and nautical miles.
The paddle log that draws itself
Rivers, lakes, cypress swamps and sea-kayak coastlines have one thing in common: no trail markers. The recorded track is the trail — your own wake drawn live on the map, so retracing the route home is just following the orange line back through the same gap in the reeds. NomadTracks records it quietly while the phone stays in the dry bag, or from the Apple Watch with wet hands, and pins every photo you take to the exact spot on the water.
Why GPS loves open water
Under open sky, GPS is at its best — recording quality on a lake or a slow river is typically better than in forest or a canyon. Add a georeferenced chartlet or a scanned river map as an offline overlay and you have your position on real cartography, no signal required. The Caddo Lake story below threads 9 km through a flooded cypress maze exactly this way.
Questions
FAQ
Does GPS work on open water?
Excellently — water means open sky. Recording quality on lakes and rivers is typically better than in forests or canyons.
Can I record from the Apple Watch while the phone is in a dry bag?
Yes — the watch records standalone, and the track syncs to your phone library afterwards.
Is NomadTracks a good kayak tracking app?
Yes — kayak tracking is a core use: record the paddle with speed-over-ground and distance, drop POIs for put-ins, portages and lunch beaches, and follow your own wake home. It works fully offline, records from the Apple Watch while the phone stays in the dry bag, and the whole trip exports as GPX. Free, no account.
Free on the App Store
Record, map and keep every adventure — privately, on your own devices.
🤖 Also on Android — free on Google Play.