With all the bad news in the media, you may be looking forward to getting away from it all. If your activities take you outdoors and into unmapped areas of the earth, there are two location apps that you should know about: “what3words” and “Plus Codes.”

The two apps use geocodes to provide pinpoint accuracy in identifying your location.

What3words and Plus Codes can narrow down a location to within a 3X3 metre square space, irrespective of whether it is in a big city, on top of a snowy mountain, or in the middle of a desert.

These location apps will work in offline mode even when your mobile phone can’t get a signal. What3words and Plus Codes are available free of cost for non-commercial use.

Getting lost can be stressful

Whether you are trying to find your way around in a foreign city, boating on a lake, skiing on a mountain, or trekking in a conservation area, there’s always a chance that something can go awry. If you don’t believe that it can happen to you, you should read this article in the National Geographic titled, Day hikers are the most vulnerable in survival situations.

According to the research, wandering off trail is the number one reason, ahead of injury and bad weather, that adult hikers require search and rescue.

National Geographic

While you may have a system to handle unforeseen situations, leveraging technology to get you out of a jam would make sense.

Geocode systems translate physical addresses into their GPS coordinates. Whether it is a building, a tennis court, a bridge, or any other point on the surface of the earth, geocodes allow you to find a location’s longitude and latitude.

If you use Google Maps for driving directions or use Waze to avoid road hazards and construction zones, you are already using applications that leverage geocodes.

What’s different about what3words and Plus Codes?

The geocoding system behind what3words has divided the entire surface of the earth into 3X3 metre grids and assigned each grid a unique three-word address. Hence the name what3words. The three-word format makes it easier to remember than traditional GPS coordinates.

The what3words address for Canada’s Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, shown above, is message.amazing.gobble.

Your house has a unique three-word address; you can look it up here.

Plus Codes is a Google initiative. It was launched to address the lack of street names in developing parts of the world.

Similar to what3words, Plus Codes break down latitude and longitude coordinates into 14×14 meter grids. Each grid is given a unique ten-character address which follows a region/ neighborhood/building hierarchy. You can find more details on plus codes here.

The Plus Codes address for CN Tower, Toronto is JJV7+25

These two addressing systems are global and consistent. They are not tied to geopolitical boundaries, which means that if a road gets renamed or a region gets annexed by a country, the geocode-based address will not change.

Why should you care?

Not every point on this earth has an address. If you ever get stuck in a place that is not on a map, what3words and Plus Codes will come in handy.

Contrary to what you may think, you don’t have to be in a Peruvian jungle or a Panamanian rainforest to find yourself in a place without an address. A hiking trail, a lake, or a new development in your city may not have usable addresses and mapped roads to pinpoint your location.  

Consider the following scenarios.

• Roadside assistance on a rural road
• An Uber pick-up at a construction site that has no street names
• Finding your car in a large outdoor parking lot that has no markers
• A medical emergency while picnicking in a large conservation area
• A stalled boat in the middle of a lake
• Wandering off a trail and getting lost
• Finding your way around in a foreign city when you can’t read the signs
• Inadvertently veering off the trail while skiing

The idea is to identify your exact location through the app and provide it to the person or the team that is trying to find you. Anyone who receives the codes can plug it into the map view of the app to pinpoint your location.

Plus Codes is included in the Google Maps app. You can simply tap on the blue dot on the map to generate and share the Plus Code of your location. What3words is available on IoS, Android, and desktop as a standalone tool.

What3words works with Google Maps to enable navigation from one point to another. In offline mode, the maps may not load, but the inbuilt navigation compass continues to work and points you in the direction of your destination.

Many business applications can benefit from what3words and Plus Codes. Search and rescue, postal services, and transportation are some areas where geocoding applications are finding increasing levels of adoption.

Pinpoint accuracy will become crucial when intelligent machines such as drones begin to play a significant part in the future of commerce.

So, whether you want a drone to deliver pizza to your backyard, or are contemplating a trek around Iguazu Falls in Argentina, it’s good to be aware that these location apps exist.