Photo: Isaac Mehegan on Unsplash
6 Crucial Apps for Your Camper Van Holiday
Over the years, campervanhire.com has built up plenty of campervan know-how that we love to share with hirers old and new. We are obsessed with holidaying in a campervan and are always searching for tips and ideas to make the experience even better. Although one of the key benefits of going on a campervan holiday is the ability to disconnect and get away from technology, the reality is that virtually everyone is now attached to their mobile phones.
With the plethora of apps available, we embarked on a seemingly endless research task to identify apps that would complement the campervan experience. These are the apps that after testing we are more than happy to recommend, as we now use them every time we hire a campervan or set off on a trip.
Park4Night
Community is one of the things which makes campervan holidays so enjoyable. Finding the perfect parking spot, the perfect campsite, or even the perfect view can then be shared enabling other people to benefit from your experiences.
This app is strongest in Europe, though it now lists places in more than 100 countries. It provides a quick and easy way to find campsites and spots to park up your campervan for the night, shows the amenities at each location and reviews from other users, and gives GPS directions to your location of choice. The app is free, with a paid park4night+ subscription that adds offline mode and extra filters. https://park4night.com/
Search For Sites
Not everyone goes to Europe for their holiday, or perhaps you just want to set off on a cheeky little mid-week trip somewhere in the UK. If so, Search for Sites is worth a look. It is a similar idea to park4night, with especially strong UK coverage.
Its website lists more than 50,000 motorhome stopovers and campsites across Europe, over 15,000 of them in the UK, and you can download country maps to use offline when your signal drops. It is free to download, but some content needs a paid annual subscription. https://www.searchforsites.co.uk/
PackPoint
Whether you are a first-time campervan holidaymaker or have many years of experience, there is always a sense of trepidation around what you should and shouldn’t pack. Although space tends to be a little more plentiful in a campervan than if you are flying somewhere, you don’t want to take unnecessary items, but in the same breath you want to ensure that you have everything you need. Enter PackPoint, the app that helps make your decisions for you.
With PackPoint you type in the destination where you are headed, the date and the duration of your holiday and within seconds this clever app will provide you with a full and comprehensive packing list. In our experience, the list has been extremely accurate and identified a few items that we would never have considered, but which turned out to be extremely useful. The app is free, with an optional low-cost Premium upgrade that adds custom activities and list items, TripIt import and list sharing.
Geocaching
Without wishing to conform to stereotypes, the vast majority of people who enjoy hiring a campervan, are likely to appreciate the great outdoors, like a bit of adventure and exploration. This is why Geocaching is the perfect form of entertainment for adults and kids alike. Geocaching is like a worldwide treasure hunt. People from around the world hide caches all over the world, sometimes in plain sight. It is fair to assume that you have walked past thousands of these hidden treasures without even knowing. Once hidden, people upload clues and coordinates to Geocaching.com, and they show up in the official Geocaching app. There are more than three million geocaches worldwide. A free Basic membership lets you find many of them, and a paid Premium membership unlocks the rest.
The idea then is to use the clues to find the hidden treasure. To make it even more exciting you can buy a trackable (a tagged item that travels from cache to cache) and leave it somewhere to be found. Your fellow geocachers will then take it with them to their next destination and hide it again. Because it is trackable, you or your children can follow its journey all across the world. The other beauty of this activity is that your holiday can continue long after you have returned home. https://www.geocaching.com/
Spotify/Apple Music/ YouTube Music/ Amazon Music
No road trip is complete without a stunning soundtrack to get everyone going. With any of the above apps, you can build your playlist, choose from millions of premade ones, and if you subscribe to the app, download directly to your phone so that a lack of signal is not going to be a problem.
Whether you like Country Music, Rock or Disney Movies the choice is completely unlimited, and in our experience, this will enhance your campervan experience.
Flush
Perhaps not a topic that you might want to think about, but at some point in your campervan trip particularly if you have young children on board, you will need to find a public toilet quickly. And that is where Flush comes in.
The app, now listed as Flush Toilet Finder & Map, is free (ad-supported) and has a database of about 200,000 public toilets worldwide, stored on your phone so it works offline. Just open the app and it shows the nearest ones, including whether they charge a fee or need a key. This will hopefully not be an app that you need to use regularly, but it could well be the most important app you have ever installed if and when it is needed.
All of the above apps are available on both Android and iOS, and our advice would always be to download them before you leave so that you are fully prepared. At Campervanhire.com you can compare a wide range of campervans listed by private owners and local hire businesses and booked through our partner Outdoorsy. If you have questions about this guide or feedback on the apps, get in touch using our simple form.