8 Apps You Need When Visiting National and State Parks
Reading Time: 4 minutesPlanning to visit a national park soon? Make sure your trip is hassle-free by using these apps to help you navigate trails and find campsites.
A trip to a national or state park can be pretty exciting, but you’ll want to make sure you’re well-equipped for the adventure. Navigating trails, finding campsites, and exploring dining options can get hectic, so you’ll need to prepare appropriately beforehand.
Fortunately, there are a good number of apps that can help you plan a successful and enjoyable visit to a national or state park. Most of these apps can help you make the most of your trip in some form. Here, we’ll be introducing you to eight of the best.
1. Alltrails: Hike, Bike & Run
On the surface, Alltrails is a simple navigation app for people looking for new hiking trails. However, it goes deeper than that. The app uses your phone’s location to find new trails near you, but you can also search for trails in further locations.
It offers in-depth information for each trail, including current conditions, reviews from previous trail-goers, and directions. It also helps you figure out whether a trail is friendly for kids, pets, the elderly, or the disabled.
When visiting parks, you can plan ahead by keeping the current conditions in mind. Thanks to the offline maps feature, it is also one of the best apps for navigating mountain biking trails.
Download: Alltrails for iOS | Android (Free, subscription available)
2. Chimani State & National Parks
This app can help you figure out which state park to visit next out of the thousands of options in the United States. It allows you to find parks based on location, historical significance, wildlife viewing, and more. The app also features a massive catalog of travel guides for different parks. Like Alltrails, this one also offers an offline map feature.
Additionally, every time you visit a park, you can unlock a virtual badge by planning through the app. You can even track all your previous visits and save information on your favorite parks. Finally, each entry also lists the different activities available at a specific park.
Download: Chimani State & National Parks for iOS | Android (Free, subscription available)
3. National Park Trail Guide
If you enjoy hiking while visiting national or state parks, you should definitely give this app a shot. It includes descriptive trail data and information on hiking conditions for most national parks in the United States. You can search for parks near you or plan for a future trip by viewing the app’s curated lists.
It also allows you to search for hikes based on difficulty and shows you photos, stats, and reviews for each site. The app goes in-depth on factors such as elevation profiles, lodging, camping conditions, and more.
Download: National Park Trail Guide for iOS | Android (Free)
4. National Park Service
This is an official app created by the National Park Service, a government agency in the United States. As such, it includes in-depth information and guides on every national park in the country. The app also acts as a personal tour guide that tells you about the points of interest for each park you visit.
While other apps rely on information from previous visitors, this one has insight from park rangers. It also helps you find amenities at every park and provides audio descriptions for certain trails. The app is for planning hikes, road trips, or visits to national museums.
Download: National Park Service for iOS | Android (Free)
5. ParkPassport
ParkPassport is an app created by the National Park Trust, a land preservation partner of the National Park Service. The app features a park finder that allows you to discover nearby parks anywhere in America. However, the focus on different activities is what makes this one stand out.
For example, you earn badges for completing different park and outdoor activities, which are viewable in the Digital Passport. This feature gives you a sense of accomplishment and encourages you to explore more outdoor activities. It also details fishing information, camping conditions, virtual tours, educational videos, and more.
Download: ParkPassport for iOS | Android (Free)
6. Google Maps
From a navigation perspective, it is hard to beat Google Maps compared to other apps. You can quickly search for bike routes, hiking trails, and parks. The app will then give you directions, reviews, and a short description of each entry.
Out of all of these apps, Google Maps is by far the most popular, so you’ll find the most reviews and photos here. The app also allows you to chart your own course and create a planned route. While it’s not as in-depth as the other apps, it is a must-have for navigation.
Download: Google Maps for iOS | Android (Free)
7. Campendium – RV & Tent Camping
Campendium is by far one of the best camping apps out there. This app helps you pick the right place to pitch your tent and have an enjoyable experience outdoors. It also has an active community of campers across the United States who regularly update information on different sites.
The search feature allows you to filter through campsites at national and state parks. The filters are based on pricing, amenities, discounts, and more. The app also features an active community of active campers and RV enthusiasts. So, you’ll easily find reviews, photos, and pricing information for different campsites and resorts.
Download: Campendium for iOS | Android (Free, subscription available)
8. PackPoint Travel Packing List
PackPoint is a bit of an outlier among the apps we’ve looked at so far. Rather than helping you find the nearest national park, this one helps you create a packing list for that visit. To start, you simply enter your destination, day of travel, and length of stay.
You can also tell the app if you’re taking a business or leisure trip. From there, you can pick the activities you want to partake in during the trip. The app then curates a comprehensive list of items to pack for the list. Of course, you can further customize these lists to your liking.
Download: PackPoint for iOS | Android (Free, in-app purchases available)
Plan a Park Trip to Remember With These Apps
A good number of these apps can help improve your hiking experience, but a lot of them go further in helping you plan a park visit to remember. There’s a lot to do when visiting a national or state park, and you can make your next trip a frustration-free experience with these apps.
Furthermore, these apps are great for helping you spend time outdoors. It’s essential to connect with nature sometimes, especially in today’s digital and always-online world.
Reference: https://www.makeuseof.com/apps-for-visiting-national-and-state-parks/
Ref: makeuseof
MediaDownloader.net -> Free Online Video Downloader, Download Any Video From YouTube, VK, Vimeo, Twitter, Twitch, Tumblr, Tiktok, Telegram, TED, Streamable, Soundcloud, Snapchat, Share, Rumble, Reddit, PuhuTV, Pinterest, Periscope, Ok.ru, MxTakatak, Mixcloud, Mashable, LinkedIn, Likee, Kwai, Izlesene, Instagram, Imgur, IMDB, Ifunny, Gaana, Flickr, Febspot, Facebook, ESPN, Douyin, Dailymotion, Buzzfeed, BluTV, Blogger, Bitchute, Bilibili, Bandcamp, Akıllı, 9GAG