So just before we left I took the plunge and decided to purchase a GPS locator device. In essence, this mobile phone sized piece of electronic gizmo allows us to send a ‘Check-in/Ok’ message to a preset group of email addresses or sms to mobile numbers. This allows us to ‘Check-in’ to let everyone at home know that we are ok and it also sends our current position on the face of the earth. It uses GPS so there is no issues with mobile coverage etc.

What the Spot Tracker also lets you do is request ‘Help’, again from a predefined group of email addresses or mobile numbers to allow you to request ‘Help’ in a non-life threatening situation…eg. we have run out of fuel and are stuck at location x, but other than that we are ok. This allows family members to coordinate assistance through local services, eg. ring the local police station or the National Park Ranger and ask them to come to our location and check on us.

Of course, there is also the ‘SOS’ function (thankfully this is under a safety cap which needs to be removed before it can inadvertently be pressed!), this notifies authorities directly of the SOS including our current location so that appropriate measures can be taken for assistance.

One of the neat things about all of this though is that public pages can be made so that anyone can view your previous ‘Check-ins’ and see where you have been over the last seven days. And so with that, the link to our Spot Tracker page is:

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jspglId=09EavxBfu73pqxqmHeXk5YWJOquGeNaBn

Enjoy exploring some of the places we have been!