December 8, 2025

Exploration is endless with Garmin Navionics+ and Garmin Navionics Vision+ mapping.

Whether you’re fishing a lake or cruising through coastal waters, having detail-rich mapping is vital when exploring inland and offshore. Both Garmin Navionics+™ and premium Garmin Navionics Vision+™ can be a great choice for any marine adventure with all-in-one navigation charts that boast extensive coverage areas.

Plot your course with the world’s #1 marine mapping solution1 on your compatible chartplotter. You can choose the standard option, Garmin Navionics+, or go for the premium Garmin Navionics Vision+ for additional features. Below, we’ll break down the difference.

Benefits of Garmin Navionics+

With Garmin Navionics+ marine and lake mapping, mariners receive integrated Garmin and Navionics nautical charts with coastal waters, lakes, rivers and more for your chartplotter. It also includes built-in Auto Guidance+™ technology2 that provides boaters with optimal suggested dock-to-dock paths that take into consideration chart data and frequently traveled routes as well as desired depth and overhead clearance set by the user.

Garmin Navionics+ gives you options to adjust your display, including shallow water shading, depth range shading and up to 1’ contours. Using user-defined depth, you’ll see a clear view of shallow areas to avoid. If you’re wanting to zone in on specific depth for fishing or navigation, you can set up to 10 color-shaded options at user-defined depth levels.

Because having up-to-date mapping is essential to decision-making on the water, view thousands of daily chart content updates with a 1-year marine chart subscription. Plus, join fellow boaters on the ActiveCaptain® Community to see popular points of interest, recommendations and advice from boaters who frequent the area you plan to explore.

Benefits of Garmin Navionics Vision+

Premium Garmin Navionics Vision+ mapping comes with a more robust collection of downloadable charts and advanced features.

Layers for advanced navigation include high-resolution relief shading and satellite imagery. Perfect for inland and coastal adventures, relief shading gives boaters an easy-to-interpret clear view of depths and bottom structure. See a realistic view of your surroundings for increased situational awareness when viewing satellite imagery.

Garmin Navionics Vision+ includes aerial and surface photos for an above-water view of ports, bridges, docks, navigational landmarks and more when clicking on the photo icon. You can also access side scan images of fallen timber, fish attractors, wrecks and potential hazards georeferenced on the chart.

For 3D views from differing perspectives, switch to Mariner Eye for topside imagery and FishEye 3D views for below waterline imagery depicting bottom and contours.

You can see bottom hardness and submerged features by viewing the sonar imagery overlay. If you’re fishing select lakes, see subtle and dramatic transition areas in contrasting color.

For more accurate depth data, dynamic lake level allows users to adjust maps to reflect current water levels and shorelines. This is helpful when navigating through inland waters, such as reservoirs, where the water levels may fluctuate.

Check out Garmin chart options and choose the Garmin Navionics+ or Garmin Navionics Vision+ plan you need. The included 1-year subscription means you can easily keep your charts updated via a Garmin Express™ account or the ActiveCaptain app.

1Based on 2024 reported sales

2Auto Guidance technology is for planning purposes only and does not replace safe navigation operations