23 Mobile Things #21: Free-For-All

For this Thing, I decided to look for apps that continued the "hobbies" Thing.  I like to go hiking -- not extreme, but a decent walk in woods, along rivers, lakes, and so forth, where I can enjoy nature, or landscapes or even architecture.  The walks/hikes themselves can be anywhere from a mile long to several miles, depending on the terrain (knees are getting too old for too much up and down).  So here are the following free apps that I have found:

Field Trip:  this an app that was developed by Google and provides you with a list of all sorts of places to go based on your interests.  You can select architecture, historic places & events, lifestyle, foods,drinks & fun, cool & unique and art & museum.  It uses your location to find places near you, provides a map, information about the place and if any ratings exist.

All Trails:  this app, using your location, searches out all sorts of hiking and walking trails.  It tells you how long the walk/hike is, provides directions to the hike from your current location, where there are other nearby trails, ratings for the trails.  You can also filter by type of activity, such as if you are looking for birding trails, horseback riding trails, etc.  You can also filter by features of the trails -- can you bring a dog, is there a lake, waterfalls, wildlife viewing, etc.  And if you want easy, moderate or hard hikes.  You can record your various tracks, and individually record each hike -- how many miles, how long it took you, pictures you took along the way, etc.

and the last app is MapMyHike, which is similar to All Trails, but concentrates on the workout aspect of hiking.  You turn it on when you start at your walking/hiking location (or run, road cycling, cross country, dog walking, and so on), can have "coaching" turned on or off, add music, live tracking.  You select your route -- there is a route wizard that uses your location to map out a route  and gives you the number of miles, how far away it is, a map of the hike, elevation information for the different parts of the hike.  There is even a nutritional aspect, where you can record foods, how much water was consumed and calories used.  

Both of the above apps can be very useful with regards to a "healthy workplace."  My institution promotes a healthy lifestyle and one of the things they will provide are step meters.  The use of the above two apps would be going a few "steps" farther in keeping healthy in the workplace.