Two GPS community sites were brought to my attention almost simultaneously today. Both allow you to upload, edit and share GPS data, and both offer exporting to KML.

First up: Wikiloc, by Jordi L. Ramot. Jordi writes up his site far better than I can:

I’ve recently developed a completely free web app to discover, post and share GPS information on the web. Posting a GPS tracklog/waypoint (in gpx format) takes less than a minute and immediately you can visualize it on Google Maps, in 3D in Google Earth, you get the elevation profile, distance, accumulated heights, driving directions to the trail head, attach pictures too. For GPS trails in zones with Web Map Services registered in Wikiloc, you can even visualize them overlaid on USGS (or Spain’s ICCs, etc…) maps both in 2D (Google Maps) and since yesterday in 3D (Google Earth) too (I’m pretty excited about the latter and I’ve written about it in my latest weblog post).

Wikiloc won the Google Maps Mashups contest prize some weeks ago and since then it has had good acceptance from users, at the moment mainly in southern Europe although there are already some authors from the US like hikerdave. I’m surprised and glad that my little web app is being known in other countries too. So far all user feedback has been great and I’d love to let the app be known in other countries.

Glad to help:-)

The other GPS sharing site is Everytrail: Here too you can upload GPS files, add waypoints, photos, notes… and then share them. In addition to exporting the edited track to Google Earth, you can also add it to your website via an embedded iframe. Another nice touch: If you have a PC, you can download a client that will automatically transfer tracks from your GPS device to EveryTrail online. And, of course, it’s also free.

The person behind EveryTrail is Joost Schreve, who explains the motivation behind it in an interview with Tech Digest:

Everytrail has its roots in founder and CEO Joost Schreve’s own travels around the world, and frustration at the fact that it wasn’t easy to share his photos and experiences online. Having created various websites and blogs, he and his friends decided there must be a better way. Hence Everytrail.

The whole thing is an interesting read. (I found EveryTrail via Jeepx.)

And a few weeks ago, Ogle Earth wrote up Crankfire, a GPS community site for bike trails. So now there is Wikiloc, EveryTrail and Crankfire. I think we have ourselves a promising new genre of community site here. Check them all out.

(PS, don’t forget the GPS community sites for pilots: flightlog.org, goflying.org and Paraglidingforum.com.)

[Update 08:29: Wikiloc also lets you embed maps in your website, I’ve found out.]