5 Useful Apple Watch Apps For Your Next Outdoors Adventure

There are things you should know before buying an Apple Watch, like the fact that it barely works with Android or that you might find the cheaper SE variant to be good enough for daily use. Once you do pick up the digital timepiece, you will be fascinated to learn of the many features it has to offer. The usual ones include activity tracking, health monitoring, or step-by-step navigation. Recent generations of the device, like the Apple Watch Series 10, come with the ability to perform ECG scans and alert you of irregular heartbeat rhythms and other complications. 

Then there's the ecosystem advantages of owning an accessory carefully crafted by Apple. You can answer calls, reply to texts, and use your Apple Watch for contactless payments. With a cellular plan, you don't even need to carry your iPhone to the gym or on your morning run — your watch will be able to handle all your communication and music needs just fine. This further unlocks a wide selection of apps you can use directly on your wrist. Based on user reviews and ratings on the App Store, here are a few apps for the Apple Watch worth checking out if you're into outdoor adventures like hiking, running, or stargazing. 

For those of us who enjoy long, challenging walks in the countryside, there are a few great hiking apps for the Apple Watch. One such is AllTrails, which covers your hiking, running, and walking adventures. It's available for free with a staggering 4.9-star rating on the App Store.

The companion app for the Apple Watch lets you track your hikes and perform quick actions so you don't have to bother with your iPhone every couple of minutes. You can use AllTrails to get inspiration for new hikes, plan your routes ahead of time, and track all of your adventures. You can then post your trails on social media.

Though you can stick to the suggested routes, the app also lets you custom plan your journey. This can be useful if you're trying to accommodate child or wheelchair-friendly hikes — or perhaps you need a more adventurous trail for you and your dog. AllTrails offers a premium subscription that unlocks other useful features like offline maps and alerts when following the wrong directions. You also get rid of any advertisements when you upgrade to the subscription-based service. That said, for people just getting into outdoor adventures, the free version, with its many features, should suffice just fine.

The app store is saturated with workout apps of every kind — some cater to your home workout needs, while others aid you with comprehensive push-pull plans for the gym. Strava has been around for ages, and is regarded as one of the best outdoor adventure apps you can have installed on your phone. It is now also available as a companion app for the Apple Watch.

The app has a user-friendly interface, both on mobile and the smaller screen of a watch. For those uninitiated, Strava serves as a tool to track your walks, runs, or hikes. It makes use of on-device GPS tracking to map out your activities and presents useful metrics at the end of your workout, such as your average pace, heart rate, and total duration.

Strava brings a huge emphasis to the community side of things and includes aspects like clubs you can join or challenges you can take part in. You can make new friends, share your activities, or compete with others for the highest position on the leaderboard. Strava has other workout types like cycling and indoor running as well. Having the app installed on your Apple Watch will make it easier for you to track your ongoing activities. Strava has a 4.8-star rating on the App Store and over 300,000 reviews by users, making it one of the most popular apps in its category.

An outdoor adventure doesn't always have to involve you being physically active or planning complicated hikes. Sometimes, a beautiful outing during an open night sky with your friends is all you need. Though it's tough to match the experience that a telescope can bring for stargazing, you can do a lot with the iPhone in your pocket or the Apple Watch on your wrist. Night Sky is a free app available for nearly every Apple device that helps you unlock the secrets of space.

While the app heavily revolves around the use of augmented reality (AR) and thus requires you to use an iPhone for the best experience, the Apple Watch version of the app can come in handy, providing you with quick information on celestial data. It can use the compass on your watch to help you position yourself and view the various constellations and planets around you.

On your Apple Watch, the app will help you identify different constellations, and help you view current stargazing conditions. Like most apps available for the Apple Watch, Night Sky works best when complemented with the iPhone. This unlocks several other features, like the ability to capture astrophotography pictures with your iPhone and save them to your memories. The pro version of the app expands its feature set and lets you stargaze with friends and family living miles away through SharePlay on macOS. The app has a rating of 4.5 stars on the App Store.

Working out in the gym has its benefits, thanks to the different kinds of equipment available at your disposal. However, outdoor adventures will always remain to be a more exciting alternative. If you are a seasoned runner or someone who's just starting out, then Map My Run is an app worth checking out, especially with a rating of 4.8 stars and nearly 700,000 reviews on the App Store alone.

While Strava can be used to track your runs, using a dedicated app has its advantages. Map My Run utilizes the various health-tracking features on the Apple Watch. It tracks metrics like your heart rate directly from your wrist, providing far more accurate results during and after your workouts. The app can sync its data with other services, like the Health app on your iPhone, allowing you to view consolidated data about your weekly activities in one place.

Map My Run does allow you to track other kinds of activities, such as gym workouts, cross-training, yoga, or cycling. Like AllTrails, you can plan your activities ahead of time by viewing nearby routes or planning one of your own. The premium version unlocks features like Live Tracking that can help your loved ones keep a tab on you.

This might be a long shot, but catching flights around the globe can be sort of an outdoor adventure for some. People who fly frequently will relate to how annoying flight tracking can get at times — especially given how clunky most airline apps are. With a 4.7-star rating, Flighty is an app available for the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch that sets out to make this experience tenfold better. 

You can take a look at your check-in and boarding times and make sure that your flight hasn't been delayed or advanced. The companion app on the Apple Watch can be of extreme help when your hands are tied with luggage, your passport, and other documents. The app's interface on the watch is beautifully designed and resembles something that Apple itself would craft. 

The pro subscription unlocks a lot more, including faster push alerts, Live Activities on iPhone, unlimited flight history, delay predictions, and lock screen widgets. The free version should accommodate most people since it allows you to log unlimited flights as well and comes with no ads.

There is no shortage of free Apple Watch apps you can download from the App Store. Many of these are geared towards health and fitness and often feature separate premium subscriptions that encompass an extended list of features. It's worth noting that while these apps may function independently on the Apple Watch, they still require the main app to be installed on your iPhone if you're looking for the entire feature suite. 

We listed recommendations based on the overall rating that these apps have accumulated on the App Store. All of these apps have a great track record of receiving regular updates that bring bug fixes and add-ons for a richer experience.