Long time ago, you will need a physical map for a road trip. Nowadays, road trip is much easier even in the most foreign countries by using a smartphone and plethora of mobile application.
This post will share what apps that is useful for your road trip in New Zealand. Some of the apps is very generic so that the tips also applicable for road trip outside of New Zealand.
Navigation
Road trip is about traveling by vehicle. We will need direction to our destination. So navigation apps is a must.
Most rental company provides GPS rental. Alternatively we also can purchase a specific GPS device. But from our experience, using smartphone is more than enough to do navigation without the need a specific GPS device.
Google Maps
This is the main apps in Android phone and also available in IOS phone. Previously we need active internet connection to search location and direction. But in the not so recent update of the apps, we can store the area of the map locally. The larger area that we want to store the more storage required to save the data.
Google maps is still the best free maps and navigation software out there. The database is huge with a lot of point of interest, accurate navigation routing and voice guided direction.
Nokia Here
The only reason last time we still need another apps outside of Google maps is because we need an offline maps apps because in some area, there might be non internet connection. Having all maps in offline storage means, we still can navigate or search a location even when there is no mobile connection.
The good thing of Nokia Here is, offline maps (which now is available in Google Maps too), voice guided direction and speed limit. Speed limit is one of the feature that we haven’t seen available in Google Maps yet. Speed limit feature will give a continuous beeping sound if we drive above speed limit.
Camping Apps
These are 3 camping apps we used in New Zealand. The use of camping apps is to find camping location. It is important in the itinerary planning stage and also on the road itself. In the itinerary planning, itinerary depends a lot on where we will stay on the night because usually we plan itinerary in the nightly basis. For example on the first day we will drive for x Km and will stay in x camping place in x city. On the road we might still need the apps because maybe we couldn’t follow the planned itinerary because we are late and hence need to stop earlier in a camping place.
Out of these 3 apps, we use all of them quite evenly because they have a different database. We use wikicamp since our Australia road trip. It is paid apps, but we believe it is well worth the money. It contains many camping locations, either free or paid and with detail feature list. The feature that we like the most is user comment of a camping location. The comment can contain photo and also just a review of the camping spot which is very useful for traveler like us to hear first hand feedback from other travelers.
We don’t have comments for the last two apps. The reason why we also installing them is to get more camping location database. Because it is often there are some locations that are available in one apps but not in the others. Different with Wikicamp, Camper Mate and Rankers are free.
- Wikicamp New Zealand
- Camper Mate
- Rankers Camping NZ
Video and Photography
What is the use of travel if we are not capture some photos or record some videos a long the way. We use these 3 apps to help documenting our trip.
Play Memories Mobile
This is mobile apps for Sony DSLR camera. The feature that we use mainly is to copy the photo from camera to smartphone if we want to do quick photo sharing to social media.
DJI
Shooting photo or video from the sky yields amazing result most of the time. Since we have a DJI drone, then it is required to install the apps so that we can control the drone and see live video from the phone.
Go Pro
We use Go Pro action camera to record during wet time or when we swim because of its waterproof casing. We also like to make time lapse road recording by attaching the Go Pro camera in the windscreen. The apps actually not really required because only in rare occasion we want to use the apps to trigger the recording.
Utility
This minor utility can be replaced by a simple paper. But paper can lose and we need to collate the note at the end of the day. If we really want to sync up information reliably, this utilities below can help.
Google Drive
We use google drive to write and update notes of our itinerary and expenses.
Onenote
We use this apps for general note taking such as to write a journal to make sure we highlight important experience we have on the day.
Google Backup and Sync
This is a PC or Mac apps. We need this to sync our photo and video to the cloud. Of course it needs a good internet speed to upload the photo and video.
Hopefully by using the suggested apps here can help you to have more enjoyable and easier trip. If you think there are some other apps that are also useful for Road Trip to New Zealand, please leave your comment.