Leave No Trace (Of Worry): The Great Outdoors With Your iPhone

Remove adventuring anxiety with a little extra prep and your Apple device in tow

(Image by Author)

Summer is here and you want to be outside! Technology should serve to make our lives easier and the outdoors is no exception. With an app for nearly every situation, an iPhone can help you navigate a route, catalogue your journey, identify the nature all around you and help find a decent pub. But how do you even go about setting it up to do so? And isn’t relying on a flaky cell signal a little risky?

Experienced outdoorsy folk might tell you technology is a crutch. After all, our ancestors colonised and conquered the globe with nothing more than the position of the sun and stars to help guide them on their way. But it also took them thousands of years whereas I can fly across an ocean in a few hours. Technology only ever made travel better and with the right apps and accessories your iPhone becomes such an indispensable companion it would make Magellan wish he had been born five centuries later.

(Disclaimer: Whilst this guide assumes you’re more likely to be wandering the countryside closer to home, those frontiersmen do have a point and Phones can die at a moments notice. Always carry appropriate low-tech solutions in case of emergency if you’re really out in the sticks for a few days)