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Hiking Apps good for Hong Kong?

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  1. #21

    Join Date
    Jun 2005
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    23,205

    As Min07 says, that article would be quite comical if it weren't for the fact that stupid people might take it seriously!

    Anyone who goes out on the trails of Hong Kong without a paper map deserves to die a nasty death. (And several do each year). Relying on a mobile phone-based application as anything more than a recording device is utterly ludicrous.

    MovingIn07 and melodicju like this.

  2. #22

    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    NW NT
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    130

    I know I'm raising the dead with this thread but thought I'd mention a very cool safety app from the Ag & Fish Department - GPS Hiker Tracking Service

    "It is a free service and all it does is (once activated) automatically sending details of hikers’ locations to the Communications Association of Hong Kong, via mobile or Wi-fi networks. In cases of emergency, family or friends can report a missing hiker to the police and the association will e-mail the location data."

    The app also has a lot of country trails on there, so it's worth downloading.

    Reading through the previous posts about the GPS vs. map and compass controversy, there is no right answer. A GPS is only good for as long as the batteries last, but you can't use a map in the dark if your torch batteries have died. A compass is only useful if you know how to use one, and how many people know the magnetic variation to allow for in HK? (http://www.scrambling.hk/wiki/MagneticVariation)

    I think the answer is to use both, and have a torch with good batteries.

    Last edited by Moriarty; 30-03-2014 at 03:42 PM.

  3. #23

    Join Date
    Apr 2009
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    Hong Kong
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    I do see hikers now with heads bowed over their smartphones, just as if they were trudging through corridors in the MTR. Nowhere is free from the zombie apocalypse.