We love Apps - We love the outdoors - We Love outdoors Apps! Here are our three absolute favourite outdoor Apps for the Lake District this Summer:
This great little outdoor app allows you to access OS maps, and even track your location while offline, which, lets face it- is super handy when you’re in the mountains with no phone signal. It’s pretty much what it says on the tin, and well worth the £1.99 to download!
(We always recommend you take a paper map when hiking too- in case you run out of battery of course!!)
What is what3words? Well, What3words is a great little downloadable app that can pinpoint your exact location using just three words. Some very clever people have mapped every 3x3 metre square on the planet, and assigned it three words. TomTom have announced that they will be using What3Words in their devices late 2018.
Why is that so great, I hear you asking- Imagine you’re out with your family on the hills or in a city centre even and someone wanders off, or gets separated from the group. Providing they have 3G phone signal, they could give you a precise (to 3m Squared) location to track them with. Maybe you want to find your car in a large parking lot – just note its 3word location when parking it.
Not only that, but imagine you could apply this to a business; oh wait, you can! The precise location of our front door at Dale Head Hall in Thirlmere for instance, is ///cracks.diamond.respected.
The best thing by far about this app though, is how much fun you can have with it while you’re outdoors – just imagine treasure hunts and Easter egg hunts with three-word clues! Or how about keeping a collection of your favourite beauty spots to share with your friends, or with your social media followers.
We’ve been having a look at some of the most well-known peaks in the Lake District, and finding their what3words assignation:
Scafell Pike ///attends.untrained.booklet
Helvellyn ///shutting.ended.mingles
Catbells ///undertone.linen.cringes
Great Gable ///perky.loose.nicer
This is a fantastic little outdoor App if you’re into sky watching. It was featured on both ABC’s The View and in Wired Magazine.
This is by far the best astronomy App out there- It’s super easy to use; just point it at the sky and watch it do its thing. It’s a great little tool for teaching the kids about astronomy, and a bit of evening fun if you're camping out.
It doesn’t just show you what stars you are looking at; you can also search for stars or constellations and let the arrows guide you to the correct part of the sky!