When I bought my iPhone last year, I quick­ly real­ized it had the poten­tial to be a sur­vival tool  My search for iPhone apps under “camp­ing, hik­ing, and sur­vival” quick­ly returned many options for me.  I have tried a bunch of them, and am using the ‘best ones for me’ at the moment.  They may not be per­fect, AT&T’s sig­nal may stink at times, and I may not have ser­vice at all in some areas, but some of the apps are use­ful with­out ser­vice.  Here is what I have:
  • Cole­man Lantern — Instead of the IPhone Flash­light App, I added the Cole­man Lantern app.  “The Cole­man® Lantern appli­ca­tion lets you choose from 10 dif­fer­ent lanterns that fill your camp­site with bright, white light. And if you’re not camp­ing, the Cole­man® Lantern is great for find­ing things in your car, walk­ing at night, read­ing, and for any­where else you need more light.”
  • Bug Spray — I’m not sure if this app works or not, but for the cost, fig­ured I should have it… “Bug Spray emits high fre­quen­cy tones that have the effect of repelling insects. These high fre­quen­cy tones are above the hear­ing range of most peo­ple, so don’t be alarmed if you can’t hear the tones. You can see that the high fre­quen­cy tones are play­ing by observ­ing the sound meter when the app is active.”
  • First Aid White Cross — Per­son­al­ly, in an emer­gency sit­u­a­tion if I get a lit­tle crazy, I can calm myself down, and ref­er­ence some­thing that can save some­one else’s life…  “It is an easy to use appli­ca­tion that will allow you to cor­rect­ly han­dle an emer­gency sit­u­a­tion. All the basic infor­ma­tion you need for the cor­rect han­dling of an emer­gency case is illus­trat­ed and short­ly described.”
  • Wik­i­How Sur­vival Kit App — Anoth­er app with instruc­tion on how to get out of cer­tain sur­vival sit­u­a­tions in a pinch…  “The appli­ca­tion includes the ‘wik­i­How Sur­vival Kit,’ a col­lec­tion of arti­cles to get you through life’s most dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions. Includes arti­cles on first aid such as CPR, the Heim­lich maneu­ver, treat­ing burns and bleed­ing. It also con­tains wilder­ness life-savers like how to build a fire or find North with­out a com­pass. And you nev­er know when you might need some of the more “unex­pect­ed sce­nario” arti­cles like how to escape from a bear, how to regain con­trol of a spooked camel, or how to sur­vive a riot.”
  • Hik­er Pro — I use this to find cool state parks to go hik­ing in… Enjoy our inter­na­tion­al list of over 6,000 trails that yield over 50,000 miles of pure fun. Dis­cov­er new trails in your area and eas­i­ly locate hard-to-find trail­heads when you are trav­el­ing.
  • Couch to 5K — Get­ting in shape is a goal of mine… I start­ed with Couch to 5k, but slacked off a bit.  I have to get back on it… This work­out train­ing coach will help you get into shape using the C25K sys­tem, a series of inter­val work­outs span­ning 9 weeks, cul­mi­nat­ing in your abil­i­ty to run 5 km (3.1 miles) with­out stop­ping or walk­ing.
  • Fit Mind Exer­cise Moti­va­tion — An app that you can lis­ten to that helps your sub­con­scious to pre­pare itself for exer­cise and give you the moti­va­tion to exer­cise.  Does it work, who real­ly knows, it might just be all psy­cho­log­i­cal…  Fit­Mind Exer­cise Moti­va­tion uses sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly engi­neered bin­au­r­al fre­quen­cy pro­grams designed to syn­chro­nize the fre­quen­cy of your brain waves with a pos­i­tive, moti­vat­ed, ener­gized and con­fi­dent state of mind, ide­al for exer­cise.
  • 90-Sec­ond Shape up — Anoth­er app to help me get into shape.  I trav­el a lot for work, so these are easy exer­cis­es I can do right in the hotel room to help give me a fast hard work out…  The 90-Sec­ond Fit­ness Solu­tion vook is a rev­o­lu­tion­ary new way to expe­ri­ence the pow­er­ful strength-train­ing plan of Pete Cerqua. With this appli­ca­tion, you can read about Pete’s exer­cise tech­niques, watch him demon­strate each exer­cise tech­nique indi­vid­u­al­ly, and fol­low him in social media to get even more insight. You’ll shape up, get fit, and be look­ing great in no time!
  • SAS Sur­vival Guide — One of sev­er­al man­u­als I keep on the iPhone in the event I find myself in need of research in a sit­u­a­tion I may find myself…  Writ­ten by for­mer SAS sol­dier and instruc­tor, John “Lofty” Wise­man, this appli­ca­tion brings you the elite train­ing tech­niques of Britain’s tough­est fight­ing force in the most acces­si­ble ver­sion ever. Now you can take the orig­i­nal set of world-class sur­vival skills with you any­where in the world – from the peaks of Kil­i­man­jaro to the deserts of Kandahar…or to your clos­est nation­al park.
  • US Army Sur­vival Guide — One of sev­er­al man­u­als I keep on the iPhone in the event I find myself in need of research in a sit­u­a­tion I may find myself…  The U.S. Army knows how to train their per­son­nel to sur­vive. Their field man­u­al is the most author­i­ta­tive guide on sur­vival. This app is over 1,400 pages and pro­vides a com­plete ref­er­ence guide on basic sur­vival, eva­sion, first aid and recov­ery infor­ma­tion.
  • Emer­gency Radio — Not unlike a police scan­ner, depend­ing on my loca­tion, I can tune into what is hap­pen­ing in local­ly with the police, ambu­lance, and fire depart­ment…  Tune in to every­thing from the Los Ange­les Police Depart­ment (LAPD) to the New York Fire Depart­ment (FDNY). Eas­i­ly fol­low along with the action using the built-in police and emer­gency scan­ner code list. Con­ve­nient­ly locate near­by fre­quen­cies.
  • iSur­vive Sur­vival Ref­er­ence Man­u­al - One of sev­er­al man­u­als I keep on the iPhone in the event I find myself in need of research in a sit­u­a­tion I may find myself…  Mil­i­tary Grade Sur­vival Man­u­al.
  • State Lines — One of the newest apps I have pur­chased for use…  Cur­rent­ly State Lines tracks 43 pieces of trav­el rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion for each of the 50 states; includ­ing vehi­cle gun car­ry laws, state sales tax, time zones, tow­ing & RV spe­cif­ic laws, gas/diesel tax­es, rest area overnight park­ing rules, default speed lim­its, alco­hol sales laws, smok­ing bans, open con­tain­er laws, state park camp­ing entrance fees, pet leash laws, bicy­cle and motor­cy­cle hel­met laws, cell phone & tex­ting bans, left hand turn rules, and more.
  • MotionX GPS — Great for hik­ing and chart­ing your trip, loca­tion, etc… MotionX-GPS is for your out­door life:
    That’s Walk­ing, Hik­ing, Run­ning, Cycling, Bik­ing, Sail­ing, Ski­ing, Fly­ing, Rac­ing, Geo­caching.

So that’s it… These are my outdoor/survival apps that I may need in a pinch.  Some of you might be think­ing the iPhone bat­tery sucks.  Well, yeah, it does.  So I car­ry two items with me that help me out a bit.  First is the Mophie back­up bat­tery case.  It will just about ful­ly recharge my iPhone if I turn it off and let it charge deplet­ing the case’s bat­tery entire­ly.  I also car­ry a recharge­able back­up bat­tery for the iPhone.  So effec­tive­ly, I can get three full charges from my phone if I need to in an emer­gency sit­u­a­tion.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email