If you live for the weekends and are already plotting your next wilderness adventure that takes you far away from the city you should also be thinking about the sort of tech and other kit to take with you so that you can tackle whatever the wilderness throws at you.
Here is a look at how to make the most of the gadgets and apps available that are there to complement your conventional trekking gear and keep you safe and ready to contend with whatever emergency situation you have to face.
You always need clean water
A fundamental part of any survival strategy is ensuring you have access to clean drinking water so that you can sustain yourself for a reasonable period of time until help arrives.
There are are several gadgets available that help you strip out nasty bacteria from a natural water source to give you purified water that you can drink with confidence.
As you might expect there are various price points and varying degrees of efficiency with the products available but if you go for something like the military-grade Guardian Water Purifier, this gadget not only removes the threat of protozoa and bacteria, the fine pores in the filter, which t claims are more efficient than their rivals, manages to prevent the prospect of a virus by stopping even the smallest bugs getting into your drinking water.
Packing supplies of clean drinking water is ok for a weekend hike but it takes up valuable kit space and adds weight, plus it can leave you vulnerable if you end up needing more water than you have on board.
Dual purpose camp stove
The great thing about technology is that the gadgets you can buy these days are more compact than ever before and they also offer versatility too.
The BioLite Campstove is a good example of that as it lets you create a fire for cooking with ease, with the added bonus of using the heat it generates to charge your devices.
The battery pack incorporated into the design of the stove and portable grill, means that while you are cooking up a campfire treat you can be topping up the power on your smartphone and other devices using a USB connection so that you don’t run out of juice when you need it most.
Setting up camp
You might pride yourself on being an accomplished weekend warrior who knows how to put up a traditional tent in a reasonable amount of time, but wouldn’t you rather be spending more of your time exploring and enjoying the scenery?
If you had something like the Heimplanet tent, for example, this handy piece of kit fits into a small bag and is inflated and ready to use within a couple of minutes using an air pump.
You might also want to use a thermometer app on your smartphone to check the weather conditions and see which location is promising to stay dry for the duration of your stay before you choose a place to camp for the night.
Another useful app to have is the SAS survival guide, as it fills in the gaps in your knowledge and gives you some useful pointers in an emergency situation.
These are just a few gadgets and apps that you might want to consider adding to your explorer’s kit ready for your next weekend adventure.