When on the road, students or chaperones are likely to encounter emergency situations that they require salvaging from. If you find yourself in a remote location, it’s always advisable to have a contingency plan at the ready in order to keep your group safe. Here are four handy apps that every student group leader needs to be acquainted with in order to ensure a safe trip.
Sherpaa
The app is a fantastic resource since it allows users to have one-on-one communication with a licensed physician. The app, founded by Dr. Jay Parkinson, is able to handle a broad spectrum of issues that a primary care doctor would care and treat, issue prescriptions and connect to local specialists.
As Tourist2Traveler.com documented, it’s not unheard of for travelers to encounter health complication while on the road. The Sherpaa app eliminates the immediate need to travel to a hospital or call a doctor for a house call, just to get a medical opinion on a nagging issue. How does it work? The MDs ask multiple rigorous questions about one’s condition and then issue advice based on provided information. The Sherpaa app is quite convenient when one is on the road and can cool down all jitters commonly experienced during travel-related trauma.
Global Rescue
Groups traveling to remote, far-flung locations can make full utility of Global Rescue to mitigate some of the challenges and potential travel risks. The service offers travel insurance, “Saigon style” field rescue and security services.
Global Rescue also offers detailed destination reports that go well in-depth beyond typical embassy advisories. They provide information about immunizations necessary, risk and a list of local medical facilities. While the services are a bit expensive at $329 per year, many have found it a worthy investment.
Phone-a-Friend
Travelers can make maximum utility of apps like Companion and React Mobile. These apps typically come packaged with a “follow me” feature that facilitates the sharing of GPS locations with friends and family all through the trip. In doing so, one can ably monitor another’s movement all throughout the trip. Since they already know about one’s whereabouts all through the journey, in real-time, location and tracking can be quite easy.
The Phone-a-Friend system is perfect for student trips, as parents typically are security conscious. The simple, mobile and ambient solution is ideal because it gives one peace of mind whether in a big city or outdoors.
Cloak
While all the aforementioned apps were all about tracking, health or medial situations, Cloak is a bit different. Unsecured Wi-Fi hotspots and hotel internet connections can at times leave one susceptible to data compromise which could have far-reaching implications. Since these are elements of one’s personal life, having a safety net at the ready is quite important. Cloak is a fantastic VPN for computer users because of its amazing capabilities. Its intuitive user interface makes it perfect for anyone new to the world of Virtual Private Networks.
