Mike's NBC-TV stories

Hiking and Trail apps

We’ll all be spending more time soon with Mother Nature – hiking, biking, and running the warmer weather days away.

The last thing anyone wants to do, however, is get lost. PC Mike Wendland brings you three apps to take with you when hitting the trails to avoid trouble.

AllTrails offers more than 50,000 trail guides, complete with photos and written descriptions. If you’re looking for a trail in a specific location, AllTrails has it covered. It lets you track your hike, take photos that are geo-tagged, and even share your progress on social media. The app is free for iOS and Android.

ViewRanger provides access to thousands of trails from around the world. You can pick from street maps, aerial and satellite images, and terrain maps already made to follow, or even make your own. You can track your hikes, add photos and waypoints and share to social media. The app is free for iOS and Android with premium features available for purchase.

Cairn is especially useful when biking, hiking, or running in an area where cell coverage is limited or non-existent. You can download topographic maps for offline use, and also find spots where cell phone coverage kicks in. An especially useful feature allows users to set up notifications that will be sent to selected contacts if they are past due on arrival time. The app is free for iOS with premium features available for purchase.

Mike is a veteran journalist whose video "PC Mike" reports have been distributed weekly to all 215 NBC-TV stations since 1994, making him one of the most experienced tech reporters in the country. His tech stories and videos have appeared on MSNBC, CNBC, the Today Show, The New York Times, USA Today and in numerous national newspapers and magazines. In addition to the PC Mike tech blog, he also publishes the Roadtreking.com RV Travel Blog in which he travels North America in an RV reporting about interesting people and places.