I have been car camping across America since March 2023, and for this blog post I'll be featuring seven free apps that have served me well in my travels. (No paid endorsements - I'm just sharing what has worked for me.) The quick list: Google Maps, Life 360, iOverlander, NPS (National Park Service), Seek, Merlin, and Compass.
Google Maps: While I still bring a paper map or road atlas as a backup, Google Maps is my primary navigation tool. I want to highlight my two favorite uses of Google Maps: Saving Places and Finding Parks.
Saving Places: When I type in the address of a location that I want to remember - whether it's a friend's house or a state park - I use the SAVE feature. It's a simple 3-step process: I click the SAVE flag, then save to a list, then make a little note about the place. Here's a three step screenshot example using my favorite local eatery in Whitewater, Wisconsin:
Finding Parks: Google Maps helps me quickly find places around me: restaurants, parks, hotels, coffee, attractions, gas, groceries and more. I like to search for parks. When I first open Google Maps, I see a screen like below. The blue dot is my current location. Without typing anything into the search bar, I click on the Parks button just below the search bar.
Clicking on the Parks button pulls up all the parks near my current location. (See below.) I prefer to look at the Map (not a List) and I like to sort by Distance (not Relevance), so I can see the parks closest to me. Then I scroll through the nearby parks on the bottom half of the screen, or click on the red map markers to go directly to the park.
Described above is the process I use when I want to see what's around me at my current location. It's a slightly different process to find parks in the area of a location I am planning to be at in the future.
To demonstrate, I'll show you how I researched a future stop on my current trip. My favorite singer-songwriter, Jeffrey Foucault (www.jeffreyfoucault.com), is playing a show in Galway, New York soon. I purchased my ticket for the show, and decided to car camp nearby - but I had never been to the area before. So I opened Google Maps, typed in "Galway, NY" and pressed Search. This was the result:
Next, I scrolled down and clicked on Parks to see all the parks in the Galway area.
Below is the screen that opened when I clicked on Parks. I clicked on the View Map button, which enabled me to zoom in or out to contract or expand my search area. Next, I clicked on hyperlinked names of parks to further investigate.
Using Google Maps and the above process was a good starting place for finding areas of interest in Galway. I'm very excited for my time there, and I promise to tell you all about it in a future blog post!
Life 360: My family appreciates that I use an app called Life 360, a location tracking app. Life 360 enables individuals to share their location with others using GPS tracking. This app is often used by parents to track the real-time location of their children. I use it as a safety measure while solo traveling.
The positive side of this app is that if I am carrying my phone, my family can feel secure that my location is being tracked. If I have an internet connection (either by WiFi or data), they can follow my progress as I travel. They can even see how fast I am walking or running or driving my car.
The negative side of this app is that while it uses GPS (Global Positioning System) for tracking, it requires an internet connection to transmit and receive data. Some places where I travel I don't have WiFi/data access, which limits its functionality. So occasionally I don't appear on Life 360 and that causes temporary anxiety to those who have grown accustomed to knowing where I am at all times. It also depletes phone energy and data because it is constantly running in the background.
The app has other features including messaging and SOS, but I rarely use them. Mostly it just quietly runs in the background and tracks where I go, so that my loved ones can be sure I am safe.
iOverlander: A nice midwesterner at a campground in Utah told me about iOverlander, and I found the app both easy to learn and helpful to use. It is a free app that helps travelers find certain amenities, based on data and reviews submitted by fellow travelers. I use it to find lodging, showers, potable water, dispersed camping, and more. I must have tried six different apps claiming to provide such insight - and this is the only one that I actually use.
Here are a few pictures of the app:
In the first photo is the Main Menu. Click on Map. (The other choice is List, which pulls up a list of nearby places, but I prefer to use the Map to browse features that are near me, because I like to camp near rivers and lakes.) The second photo is an example of a Map screen. Be sure to click on the arrow in the top right corner to update to your current location. (This was the only tricky thing when I first started using the app.) The the third photo shows a few of the nearby amenities. Just tap on any one of them and a small window opens on the screen with a title of what is at the location. Click on the "i"to read full information.
I don't use iOverlander for research or planning ahead...it's for moments when I am out on the road and I want to see amenities near me. Maybe my plans have fallen through ("woah, that motel is way seedier than I expected!") or I find myself needing a service I didn't know I would need ("that was a great hike, but now I need a shower!") In those moments I just need to open a map, see what's around me, and be able to read a quick review of what's there from another traveler who has been there recently.
In the Settings tab, users set up filters. I like to filter for established campgrounds, informal campsites, wild camping, hotels, fuel stations, water, WiFi, laundromats and showers. (There are 40-50 filter settings for all types of travelers.) For me, the iOverlander app has been particularly helpful for finding free, safe overnight parking/car camping locations. On this trip alone it helped me to find a picturesque municipal pier on the Maine coast that allowed free overnight parking...
...and a very inexpensive RV campground near Bar Harbor, Maine with tent sites that turned out to be unexpectedly gorgeous.
Try out iOverlander the next time you are on a road trip....I think you'll like it.
NPS app: The National Park Service has its own app and it's GREAT! If you plan on attending any National Park Service locations ever in your life, I recommend the free NPS app. The app includes the 63 National Parks - and also the more obscure National Park Service locations like National Lakeshores or National Historic Sites...400 National Park Service locations overall. I particularly like the interactive maps, tours of park places, up-to-date alerts and the ability to quickly download the information about a particular park for offline use. I've used it both while planning ahead for trips, and while I'm in the parks exploring. Here are a few screenshots to give you a sense of this well-designed and helpful app:
Seek: (by iNaturalist)- This is the app that I use to identify plants, mushrooms, flowers and insects. (For me, it's used mostly for wildflowers.) When you see me crouched on a trail pointing my camera phone at something - chances are I'm using Seek to identify nature. (This app used to be called Mountain Mike (my husband) - now I have to rely on technology.) Like Mike used to do, this app helps me learn as I walk around in nature by identifying what I'm looking at and telling me more information about it. With flowers, for example, I hover the camera over the wildflower, and within seconds the species is identified. When it identifies the species it gives the option to take a picture of it and add to a collection. The picture will then be in both Photos and in the Seek app. There are some gamification features of the app that kids probably respond to, like earning badges and levels, but they are optional (and we don't need no stinkin' badges.)
My favorite place to use Seek (so far) was at Pinnacles National Park in California in April 2023 during a Superbloom. I could NOT stop taking pictures of wildflowers for three days straight! Gorgeous. (Pictured below left to right below - Padre's Shootingstar, California Poppy, and Silver Bush Lupine.)
Merlin Bird ID: (by Cornell Lab of Ornithology) This is the app that allows me to identify nearby birds by their song, using Sound ID. (There is Photo ID as well, but I primarily use Sound ID.) It's so simple to use...I open the app, click Sound ID, and the next screen says "Listening for birds...." Then it shows the sound waves made by any birds singing in the area, and then while it continues listening, the species name comes up on your screen and it is highlighted as the bird continues to sing. Here is a screenshot example from when I was hiking on a boardwalk at Clear Lake State Park in California:
Compass: Here's all I have to say about the Compass app: USE IT! In the words of REM...."Stand in the place where you live, now face north, think about direction wonder why you haven't before."
Acadia National Park recently offered me an opportunity to wonder about my place in space.
It's a beautiful world out there, and if you're anything like me, I bet you're excited to keep exploring it. I hope these tips about apps come in handy, and that they help you find your bliss, keep track of your bliss, organize your bliss and orient you within your bliss. Sojourn on!
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