Beware of the Apps!
Is it ecological to use apps for Vanlife?
In this article, I list out some select apps that might help you gain new perspectives on the ecosystems you travel through. But first and foremost, I think it’s important to acknowledge that apps, generally speaking, are not essential for Vanlife or any other aspect of our life — but they can be a helpful tool!
I think it’s essential to develop non-digital skills to fall back on and also to base our digital understanding of the world in. I was lucky that at the time of my first major road trip (New England to Alaska via Canada) smart phone capabilities were still relatively limited. With this in mind and without a Canadian phone plan, my copilot and I relied on paper maps we picked up at the local AAA office, reading signs, and generally paying attention. That almost sounds laughable today!
HUMAN EXPERIENCE: While apps are great tools for accessing and recording information, they can also diminish our lived human experience if we’re not careful. It’s easy to form a habit of using our pocket-computers to help us decide everything without allowing ourselves the space to consider challenges fully or creatively develop a solution; experiences that allow us to learn and grow and build resilience.
ACCESSIBILITY: Apps also can shift the accessibility of locations. In some ways, it’s useful or even essential to know location information that could make adventuring in nature a possibility for someone with particular accessibility needs, like road condition, nearest hospitals, or parking and ramp accessibility. On the other hand, apps that utilize GPS data and geotagging can also lead to a rapid increase in visitation, which can overwhelm the local ecosystem. I don’t have a perfect answer, but this is all to say that I believe it’s worth thinking about if you do decide to pull out your phone. If you’re going to add public information about a location be intentional and consider how others might view it or be affected.
GET LOST: So, I try to remind myself not to use apps as my first response, instead, asking myself if I can make do without the app. I suggest we see what we can do first! Leave the space for yourself to get curious, confused, or inspired. The best experiences; the ones that really stay with us and bind us to our environment are those we came to through exploration or happenstance. So get a little lost and give yourself an opportunity to build your intuition and perception of your surroundings. (Please do be safe and learn your limits without crossing them.)
Do you have a suggestion for an app that helps you live in-tune with your ecosystem? Leave a comment below and let me know!
FreeRoam
Some apps can be a great tool for your next ecological adventure, but FreeRoam is a fully-loaded toolbox, filled with everything you never knew you wanted, for free.
Beware! There are many, many, m a n y ‘campsite finder apps.’ Generally, they contribute to over-popularizing locations with their rating systems, leading some places to be overrun with trash and human waste, leading to ecological problems and public closures.
While FreeRoam is one of these apps, it is different for a few reasons. One of those reasons is that it’s a nonprofit run by two full-time nomads, Rachel and Austin. They appear to be extremely accessible and are constantly improving the app with features most useful to folks like them (like us). The app also has both browser and mobile app versions and it’s all free to use.
My favorite features are the many varieties of map-overlays which allow you to research the land based on legal designation, cell coverage, wildfire smoke, and user-reported metrics like safety and cleanliness, just to name a few. You can even overlay Forest Service Motor Vehicle Use Maps (MVUM)! Besides its robust map feature and large and growing list of free and paid campsites it also has social features, service locations like dump stations and waterfills, adventure planning tools, user-generated how-tos, and more.
Google Maps
Besides being a fantastic free GPS navigation system for your adventures, many Vanners use Google Maps and the ‘My Maps’ feature to share their ‘pins’ with each other. Touching anywhere on the map and letting go will drop a pin with GPS coordinates. When someone asks where to meet you, or where that camp you mentioned is, a ‘pin’ is often what they’re expecting.
The topographical terrain view and satellite views can also make your search for promising back roads and dreamy van camps more successful! It’s a great bonus that a google account allows your ‘pins’ to sync back and forth with the browser version and the mobile app, but Beware! Google, Apple, Amazon and other major tech companies find lots of way to track your habits and leverage those to sell you things you don’t need. If you use Google Maps, look for ways to turn off or limit it’s tracking. There are settings within both your Google account and your phone’s software settings to help you maintain your privacy.
NativeLands
It’s vitally important that we all remember that the land we rely on for our nomadic lifestyle are Native lands. There are more than 574 distinct and recognized Tribal Nations in the United States alone, and much of this land has been stolen or forcibly reorganized through broken and bogus treaties with the US Government in order to profit from the land.
NativeLands is a well designed and informative app and gives us a quick way to get a general sense of who’s land we’re occupying, links to learn about those Tribal Nations, treaties, and more. Understanding the first and continuous human inhabitants of the Land is essential to understanding and preserving our shared ecosystem. There’s no ‘Beware!’ on this one, use it as much as you want!
Being in touch with the pulse of your community is so important for ecological living, but beware! Instagram is notorious for sucking away hours and hours of our time and was actually designed to encourage you to spend longer periods of time staring and scrolling by tricking your brain! Limit your use with a screen time tracker or your iron will power! You can do it!
Like an ecosystem, the Vanlife community as a whole is made up of smaller sub-communities. Besides our active @EcoVan_org account, here are four more active nomadic communities with ecological missions.
Wunderground
Weather Underground has been a leading weather app for years. It set itself apart by using hyper-localized weather station data from hobbyists and small facilities in conjunction with NOAA data. A few years ago The Weather Channel bought it, then IBM, and the mobile app isn’t what it used to be. It is still useful, but when you really want to research you local climate it might be better to head over to their desktop website where many of the original functions remain.
My favorite feature is their 10-day forecast view which shows you all the metrics you could possibly need in an easy graph-based format. They also have great sun and moon charts and data about air quality and virus outbreaks in your area.
Honorable mention goes to MyRadar which has beautiful, high quality, animated maps showing wind patterns, fronts, high definition radar, and temperature gradients!
