Everyone has an iPhone or similar smart phone these days and we all have our favourite apps. For caravanners, there are a few must haves such as WikiCamps that everyone seems to use, and for good reason. It’s a brilliant app that does pretty much everything you would need to plan your next caravanning or camping adventure. But there’s so much more that can be done on our iPhones than just finding a nearby campsite. Here we show you five apps that we use all the time while we’re away.
Fuel Map: It’s one thing to know where you’re heading and what facilities will be at your next campsite but what about having sufficient fuel supplies to get you there. Towing a large caravan means our tow vehicles use a lot of fuel and getting to some remote areas means fuel stops will be few and far between. Fuel Map takes the guesswork out of making sure you’ll be able to find fuel along the way. It can direct you to the closest station for your favourite brand, tell you what types of fuel they sell, operating hours and even what prices are available. For travelling into remote outback areas, this app is a must have.
Emergency Aus: It is amazing how many times you hear about travellers who find themselves in emergency situations that they were not aware was going on around them. Well the Emergency Aus app can help you to maintain a situational awareness about what’s happening around you. If you can smell smoke, then there’s a good chance there’s a fire nearby. Simply open the app and it will zoom to a map of your immediate area and show you what emergencies are taking place. With this information, you can decide if you need to evacuate the area. If the incident has been reported to 000, it will be shown on the app. You can view emergencies on the map or by a list in chronological order. You can also add layers to the map such as rain radar images and a thunderstorm tracker. If you see a string of tree down emergencies, it’s a good chance the winds are becoming stronger and you should pull in your awning.
Live Lightning: There are heaps of weather apps available but very few can give you a good indication of the severity of an approaching storm. Live Lightning uses data from worldwide lightning detection networks to show you virtually live lightning strikes as they happen. The more lightning strikes, the more dangerous the storm can be. Its an incredible app and even more amazing is that access to the data is free. The level of detail is incredible. If you travel in the northern states during summer, we highly recommend you keep this app handy.
iMovie: These days we are doing much more than just taking photos of our travels. Now we take video as well and mostly its on our smartphones. iMovie is an incredibly powerful movie editing package that allows you to make your own feature movies. You can incorporate images into movies, insert captions and titles as well as overly the audio with your favourite music. It is dead simple to use and the results are nothing short of amazing. It even has some template files so you can make your own movie trailers complete with credits at the end. It’s a brilliant app that can bring a whole new dimension to your holiday memories.
Photo Editor: There are literally hundreds of photo editing apps on the market but this one is one of the best. Again, it is dead easy to use and it provides a lot of very powerful editing tools that can really make your photos stand out. You can make collages of multiple photos as well as all the latest filters and image enhancements. You can blur areas out such as number plates of cars, crop and rotate images, apply a variety of frames, add text overlays and even create your own memes. The best thing I like is that it doesn’t overwrite the original image so you can always go back to where you started if you completely ruin your photo.
There’s obviously stacks more apps around that are just as useful as these so if you have a favourite app that you would like to share with us, please let us know about it in the comments below.
In the meantime, safe travels everyone.