21st Century Camping

Have you ever tried organizing anything with your friends? It can be a frustrating experience. It can also be fulfilling and enjoyable, but sometimes at the cost of a few headaches. This applies to camping expeditions. Speaking of which, this weekend I’m going to go camping with my girlfriend and the other day, I stumbled on a great way to get on the same page for setting up the weekend. It’s a little thing called Google Docs. Many of you may already be aware of Google Docs (gdocs). But that doesn’t mean the link to use it for outdoor purposes has surfaced yet.

What does this picture have to do with Google or its documents? Honestly, nothing. I just felt it looked better than an image of Google's logo. This is an outdoor-centered blog after all.

Perhaps the easiest way to describe gdocs is that they are a simplified online version of a popular suite of software for office related tasks. Their weakness is that they are not as powerful as the desktop version. However, they offer the advantage of being free, accessible from anywhere there's the information superhighway, by anyone of your choosing, at any time. Also, you do not need to worry about version control as it is only one file being shared by many people. Because it saves automatically, you’ll cut down on those absolutely frustrating moments when you realize you just lost half an hour’s worth of work. Finally, it’s pretty cool to be working in a file and seeing other people modifying it in real time, from a completely different location.

From my little description you’ll surely have guessed how practical it’s been to use to plan stuff with my girlfriend. I made a menu for our getaway, along with a list of food we had to buy, necessary equipment and clothes. She can modify it as she pleases. We can even talk over the phone and make mutual changes. And since it’s a single file, we never have to worry about getting signals crossed through different versions. Awesome!

Hike on, hike on.