Smartphone and Camin(h)o

[eze]

Hello, I have learnt, to day, that, before we leave for our fourth Camino + Roma, we shall be offered, my wife and I, a smartphone 4S.
I have read that some of you already use them.
I would be interested to be able to read Caminho pela Costa maps while walking when necessary.
How could i do ?


Thanks.

 

[Albertinho]

We used an iphone navigation app ,named NAVMII. We bought the navigation apps in the appstore. We paid about 8€ for the Portugese app and about 5€ for the Spanish one
You do not need an internet connection to use them. It is offline and works everywhere at the caminho. There also exist feee apps called Navfree from Spain and Portugal a.o. But they are not as accurate as the paid apps.
Furthermore arriving at Lisbon airport we bought a prepaid card at Vodaphone (15€ ) to call hostels of hotels on the trail to book a room for the night, cheaper than to use your card from home
Bom caminho

 

[eze]

Muito obrigado, merci beaucoup, thanks very much.

 

[Packinglight]

Unfortunately where I live the Navmii app does not offer maps for Spain according to the Apple App Store.
I hope this will change by the time I walk the Camino.

 

[Albertinho]

Unfortunately where I live the Navmii app does not offer maps for Spain according to the Apple App Store.
I hope this will change by the time I walk the Camino.

What you can do, keep your app "maps " updated everytime you'll have a wifi connection by locating yourself.
Later on your way you can be located by gps as long as you do not enlarge your screen to much. Just as an indication where you are.
On the other hand. You can't get lost following the yellow marks.

 

[Packinglight]

Good tip, thanks!

I'm also interested in GPS not only in case I find myself needing direction, I'm also interested in recording where I've been, too. (For my less-than-stellar memory) I don't know if offline "path tracking" apps exist though.

At home I use MapMyWalk, but it needs Internet connectivity, so I surely won't be using that with roaming charges being as they are. It also sucks battery life.

 

[Albertinho]

You can use the iphone app map my tracks. It records your activity by gps. Later on when there is internet access f.ex by wifi you can upload it to your account and you can see with help of google earth or maps where you have been.

 

[Deleted member 3000]

For battery backup on the iPhone 5:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/121124694423?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

It holds about 1 1/2 additional charges, and does not weigh much. The flip cover adds a lot of protection.

Instead of roaming charges, get a pay as you go SIM chip. You get about a gigabyte for 15E on some plans on Vodafone specials, which change each month, and can be regional. Even for GPS and maps, that is a lot of data! Avoid streaming...

 

[Packinglight]

Albertinho & Falcon, that is very useful info. Thanks!

I'm almost a year out and I am having so much fun planning and preparing. I won't have much chance for research in the few months before I go, so I am trying to be as organised as possible now, to free me up to just GO when it's time.

 

[Albertinho]

You're welcome and bom caminho

 

[spik23]

Orux Maps for Android.

You will find it in Play Store, it is free and it allows you to create your own offline maps from variety of map services such as Google Maps, Microsoft Maps, etc...