Tour the US National Parks Using Apps

I love national parks and everything there is to do in them: hiking, fishing, camping, and more. I decided, because I’m so passionate about wildlife an the US parks, I would search for a way to find fast, accurate, and useful information about the US National Parks to help you, the reader, and I both explore America’s greatest national treasures.

With the various apps I found, I was able to discover features and amenities for parks like Yosemite, Yellowstone, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Joshua Tree, and Sequoia National park. Some of my absolute favorites across the country! I wanted to share my good luck with you, so I included my three favorite apps below, with descriptions, so you can find the app that works best for you.

Visit a Multitude of Parks with REI National Park Guide & Maps

REI National Park Guide is a comprehensive guide to hiking and siteseeing in national parks throughout the United States. You’re able to find data on a wide collection of trails as well as hike descriptions for many of the nation’s best parks, including bucket-list destinations like Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Zion, Grand Teton, Mount Rainier, Point Reyes, Rocky Mountain, and Zion! You also have the ability to easily upload your photos, track your movements with GPS, and even send your exact location to help if you experience an emergency situation; all essential features if you’re an avid outdoorsman like me.

By using GPS, you can find your exact location on trails and vertical profiles throughout the parks. All you have to do is follow the blue dot (that’s you!) to determine your exact position, even while you’re offline! This is the perfect app for experiencing nature while also maintaining your safety while you’re immersed in the great outdoors.

Record the National Parks You Visit with National Parks by Chimani

Prefer hiking and exploring on foot? I totally understand that! If that’s the case, National Parks by Chimani is a solid option for you. There are maps and interactive features on the entire National Parks system, including Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite National Park, Acadia National Park, and Sequoia National Park, so you can easily explore your favorite parks. And since you can download everything for offline use, you won’t ever have to worry about not having a cell phone signal. There’s also an interactive badge system for keeping track of which parks you’ve visited and the ones you want to visit in the future, which is great for frequent visitors like me who often forget where they’ve been.

From my research, users have loved the verified visitor feature, which allows you to collect badges from parks when you physically visit them, but it can sometimes be tricky to get close enough to the listed coordinates for the badge to appear. However, with so many other helpful features to help you navigate the parks, you’ll have a great time exploring while you get to those coordinates!

Navigate National Park Trails with AllTrails

If you’re looking for an easy-to-use app that helps you navigate the outdoors conveniently and effectively, then you should definitely check out AllTrails. You are able to record your hike, bike ride, or run while you follow the trail map on your mobile device. With over 50,000 hand-curated trail maps that have been crowd-sourced from millions of hikers, mountain bikers, and trail runners, there is no doubt you will find a majestic view along the way. Actually, one of the best features is that you can run the app in airplane mode, which saves you precious battery power as you go.

You might want to consider that you won’t have access to National Geographic topographic maps with the free subscription, but you can subscribe to AllTrails Pro, which will give you unlimited access to their maps as well as verified GPS routes, and GPX export capability. With a database of hiking trails you can easily search through, AllTrails is a tool for any road tripper who is looking to hit the trail in unfamiliar territory.

Conclusion

As a final tip, here’s a top 10 list I found while researching for my article. The information there was extremely helpful and in case you want more similar tools, you might find something useful here.

Apps to Discover National Parks

Hit the trail and immerse yourself in the wilderness with these three apps that, from my experience, are the very best when it comes to visiting the national parks. If you’re someone who is always hiking the trails in national parks USA, or if you’re someone who would like to start visiting them more, you will love everything these three apps have to offer.