It’s warm and lovely, finally, so we all want to get out and enjoy. Many of us prefer to leave our tech behind and enjoy the great outdoors un-mediated, but there are ways to harness tech to enhance our direct experience.
Planning Tools
- Looking for ideas? The Macon County Conservation District has a nice guide to outdoor activities in our area.
- You can use your device to google up the days and hours that various local attractions are open
- You can use the hourly weather (I like weather.com) to decide whether you want to target early morning, midday or afternoon for your excursion.
Make Sure Your Tech Is Ready for Adventure!
If you are thinking about bring your tech with you to the great outdoors, you may want to think about what to bring and how to protect it. Dirt and sand in device ports can be a problem, and we all know what water can do!
Waterproof cases are one popular and economical approach – Travel and Leisure has a nice rundown of the options here.
There are also gadgets especially designed to be rugged .
For dive enthusiasts, there are now cameras mounted on scuba goggles
There are also traditional cameras that have been ruggedized to survive sand and surf.
Nature Identification Tools
Rachel Miller, our beloved Library Director, found this terrific guide to apps you can load on your device to identify trees, flowers, birds, bugs, animal tracks, and stars and planets! You can load these up in advance of an adventure with the grandkids, or, you know, cheat and go out ahead of time and learn all this stuff so you can rattle off the information off the top of your head!
Fun and Games
There are lots of great games to play outside. Do you remember the names of your favorites? How about the rules? No? Fatherly Magazine offers a great rundown of 30 Classic Games and How To Play Them Peruse the list with your grandkids , and pick a few to try. Or ask them to teach you the ones they like!
Organize a photo scavenger hunt! Split the group into teams, one camera/smartphone for each time, and make a list of things for them to find. A sample one is here. First to find all of the things wins!
Exploration
A fun way to join a world wide adventure is to begin Geocaching. This is sort of a world-wide shared scavenger hunt, in which people try to find stuff other people have hidden.