Looking for an app that hopefully doesn't drain too much battery. Something that will just keep track of my route as I travel so that I can easily look at it on google maps when I'm done, track mileage etc.

Well they all use GPS constantly so battery drain will be consistent. A dynohub is recommended.

Strava logs everything; elevation gain, mileage, route, etc. The only "problem" is your route will be divided into segments of each day.

Good luck.

Apple? Android?

On Android systems, Soviet military maps will create a track and it will continue to do so with the screen turned off. If you have the airplane mode turned on and screen off and wifi off and bluetooth off, it should run very low battery drain. The paid version (about $11) allows you to use bulk download for maps, but if you are only trying to create a track so that you can export it to your computer, the free version of their app should be adequate since loading maps is not what you are trying to do. There are lots of apps out there, I have only tried a couple so there might be better ones. But I am quite happy with this app. I have not tried to export to Google Maps, it will create a GPX file and I use that format in Mapsource. It has lots of base map choices, I use Open Cycle layer - but the contour lines on the topo map are metric, not feet.

I have no clue if it is available on apple systems.

I use Strava, but as mentioned above, it's the GPS that drains the battery. I recommend a dynamo hub as well.

Android, sorry.

I won't be using a dynamo hub, but I will be bringing a solar charger that works well.

With Strava you can turn off cell service and it'll still work which saves power.... On IOS at least. Airplane mode turns off GPS.

Oops, apparently I was wrong in post 3 above when I suggested airplane mode.

But I can say that I have ridden for quite a few hours using Soviet Military maps to create a track with the screen turned off, wifi and bluetooth also turned off and had very little battery drain. My phone does not have a sim card in it, I have no cell service on that phone so that also saves power, I honestly thought I had it in airplane mode but I must be wrong on that if airplane mode turns off GPS.

I had my phone in the top pocket inside my handlebar bag and it kept logging a track. I just checked that track, I started at 8:41am, went until 4:34pm, used about half my battery on that ride. The key is to keep the screen off but some apps will stop running when the screen is turned off. That is why I cited this app, it continues to run with the screen off.

I have never used Strava, I can't comment.

Google MyTracks works fine, native android app included with some devices or available from App Store. Works with screen off and can be exported to just about any GIS format.

I use Motion-X GPS on my iPhone and it's pretty good. It does suck-up battery, as they all seem to do.

I use ride with GPS, seems quite good and doesn't seem to use any more power than if the phone was on standby the whole day...

I've written an iPhone/iPad app for bike tour tracking called TrackMyTour. The app isn't a real-time tracker and updates are only made when you manually add a point. While this isn't exactly what you're looking for, the approach is easy on battery consumption and also allows you to annotate the points with text and a photo. Have a look at a few sample maps.

Have a great tour!

How to turn off cell service? You can turn off cellular data in iOS settings, but I don't know of a way to turn off cellular entirely w/o going into airplane mode...which kills the GPS.

I'd like to find this, as I will be touring in western canada in places I'd have no service anyway.

Here is a good and simple app: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/micy...&ct=oxigenator