The best apps for your spring outdoor adventures

Flowers are beginning to sprout from the ground, birds are once again appearing in droves in the sky, which is clearing for the first time in months and allowing the first warm rays of sunshine to shine down on the ground. Spring has begun – and with it the time of year when people are drawn outside. But what to do with all these new options? Year after year, we stumble indecisively through parks and forests in search of sunshine – and usually more. Fortunately, there are a few apps to help you find ideas, plan and organize your spring adventures. We briefly present the best of them below.

Komoot – plan individual hiking and cycling tours

Komoot is probably the spring app par excellence. Designed as a navigation device, route planner, tour directory and social network, the app is a true all-rounder that makes the hearts of real outdoor enthusiasts beat faster. The target group consists primarily of hikers and cyclists. Komoot has numerous sights, excursion destinations and pre-planned routes for them. It is also possible to calculate individual routes that are as beautiful as possible. The fact that the desired mode of transportation can be selected very precisely is particularly practical: Hiking, running, mountaineering, cycling, road biking, mountain biking, gravel biking and enduro mountain biking(like the Audi model) are all available to choose from. Tours that are too demanding or boring are now a thing of the past. Komoot also helps you to discover new things right on your own doorstep. As the icing on the cake, it is also possible to network with other outdoor fans who also use the app – for example, to arrange joint excursions. The basic functions of the app can be used free of charge on both iOS and Android.

iGarten – plant identification and garden design

Spring is not only the time for excursions, but also for flowering vegetation. Numerous plants sprout along the roadside, in the forest and in your own garden. It is not uncommon for us to be a little perplexed by the green splendor: Is that wild garlic or poisonous? Is it a weed or does it fit in well in my garden? What exactly did I bring from the garden market and how do I look after it? If you don’t have a sound knowledge of botany to fall back on in such cases, iGarten is a good choice. The app, which specializes in garden and house plants, has a directory of more than 3,100 different plants and is equipped with more than 20,000 images of them. In addition to an identification mode, care instructions and a flowering calendar are also available. It doesn’t make the garden smart, but the technology is a great help in this way too! iGarten can be used free of charge in the basic version on iOS and Android.

Pollen radar – against annoying allergy symptoms

Enjoying longer days in the sun in spring sounds nice – except for allergy sufferers. When your eyes swell up, your nose starts to run and you find it difficult to breathe, any time spent outdoors becomes a torture. Spring adventures outdoors are then almost out of the question. Well-equipped with antihistamines and cortisone nasal sprays, it’s easy to endure, but when exactly is it time to use the medication? The Pollen Radar app helps you to take early countermeasures by displaying the current and expected pollen count. This makes it easy to estimate when which allergens will be buzzing around in the air. Trips can then be planned accordingly, making life much easier in spring. The app from pharmaceutical company ratiopharm is available free of charge for both iOS and Android. It can be used to switch on radars for 40 different types of pollen. This makes it possible to receive precise warnings about your own allergens – which is much less work than reading out an allergy calendar. All this is rounded off by an allergy diary, background information on allergies and an interactive map that shows the pollen count not only for your home region, but also for any other region.

Nabu bird world – discover the spring fauna

It’s not just plants that make their presence felt in spring, but also all kinds of birds. As soon as the first rays of sunshine appear, real concerts begin outside our windows – and hardly let up until the evening hours. In times of increasing ecological awareness, interest in songbirds has also grown considerably. If you are also interested in the animal guests in your garden and would like to find out more about them or even go on an extended birdwatching tour through forests and meadows, the Nabu Birdlife app is perfect for you. It contains detailed information on 308 bird species with lots of pictures and tools for bird identification. European distribution maps, information on song, clutches, behavior, population and other ecological facts round off the app’s free overall package – and leave every birdwatcher wanting more.

Daily Yoga – active and balanced through spring

But it’s not just nature that gets active in spring – we do too. Quite a few people feel an almost irrepressible urge to exercise with the first warm days. This, in turn, can be easily combined with time spent outdoors, and not just as part of a long walk. Yoga is also very much in vogue in spring – and can be practiced in any garden or city park as well as on the nearest meadow. The Daily Yoga app helps by providing numerous ready-made yoga classes with useful tips and tricks. There are also guided meditations to help you relax. The app is available free of charge on both iOS and Android.