Old-school camping types would sooner hire a Sherpa than pack a smartphone in their gear. But for the rest of the summer camping crowd, iPhones and Androids may soon join the Swiss Army knife as the requisite accessories.

This is especially true for those who like to pack the car, hit the highway and let fortune dictate the location of their next campsite. Apps like Oh, Ranger! ParkFinder (free on Apple) and Camp Finder ($2) are great for finding your next destination while you're in transit or on the trail.

Android users will be able to get Camp Finder by the end of next month, the company said. In the meantime, they'll be fairly well served by AllStays Camp & Tent ($3 on Android and $5 on Apple) and Google Maps (free).

Even if it weren't free, Oh, Ranger! ParkFinder would be well worth downloading. You select a state or type in a ZIP code or city name and choose from a list of 20 activities, like camping, "RVing," hiking, horseback riding and caving.

Once you select the activities, Oh, Ranger! finds public parklands that match your needs within 250 miles of the selected location.

Because Oh Ranger! focuses on public parklands, though, you'll miss every private campground in your area.

That's why it makes sense to hedge with Camp Finder, which was the best of the paid camping apps I tried. Camp Finder is produced by the publishers of CampingRoadTrip.com, and it encompasses roughly 14,000 campgrounds and RV parks in the United States.

You can either type a location into the search box or let Camp Finder's GPS locator find you. From there, it displays a list of all available campgrounds in the area, along with icons showing amenities like Wi-Fi, RV hookups and tent spots.

Unlike other apps, Camp Finder lists the campgrounds' rates on the search results page so you can quickly weed out the $65 a night establishments if they're not in your budget. Ideally, Camp Finder would let you sort the results by price or amenities, but so far no such feature exists.

There are, however, several other useful ways to sort, including campgrounds with amenities like grocery stores and propane, for instance, or campgrounds operated by the military or private parties.

People who already own turn-by-turn navigation apps for Apple, like MotionX-GPS Drive ($1, plus $20 for a year of navigation services) or AT&T Navigator ($10 monthly subscription), should check their camping-related abilities before spending money elsewhere.

Type "campgrounds" into the search box of most navigation programs, and you'll receive a list of establishments. But in the case of MotionX-GPS and AT&T Navigator, at least, the listings include no campground descriptions. In the case of AT&T Navigator, the results also included some irrelevant entries.

Android users should begin their camping-related searches with Google Maps, which is arguably the best free software in the mobile realm. The sweet spot of Google Maps is its turn-by-turn navigation feature, but it's also a good local search app.

If you type "camping" into the search box, for instance, Google retrieves nearby campgrounds, sorted by distance. You can also sort them by price or user ratings, although, in my tests, many of the campgrounds hadn't been rated by anyone.

There is no Google Maps app for Apple, but you can still access the service through your mobile browser. The process, however, is much more cumbersome than working with the app.

I'd expect decent search results from Google, but I was pleasantly surprised that the listings included more in-depth information about campgrounds than some of the camping-specific apps. The information for a privately run campground in eastern Connecticut, for instance, included 16 reviews from Google users and contributors to other Web sites.

A more unfortunate surprise was that Google missed a handful of campgrounds in the vicinity.

For those with more discerning tastes in campsites and RV spots, Camp & Tent is a good way to find more options. The app was developed by the publisher of AllStays.com, a Web site for specialty lodging like campgrounds, spas and motels.

Adam Longfellow, the president of AllStays, said the app covered more than 14,000 campgrounds in North America, 87 percent of which are in the United States. Another app from AllStays, Camp and RV, lists more than 22,000 locations

I found the listings fairly comprehensive, but still, it missed some that were featured in Camp Finder, for instance. The campground-specific information was also thinner than that featured in many of the other apps I tried, and the descriptions were pinched into a space so small that I needed to hold the phone close to read them.

Camp & Tent deserves credit, however, for sorting its results according to the campground operators. Kampgrounds of America, the service known as KOA, gets its own icon in the results.

Also, unlike many other camping-specific apps, Camp & Tent stores your last search results. So if you and your friends are stuck in the back woods with no network connection and an itch to move to another spot, your phone can still bail you out.

And if your camping companions are of the old-school, smartphone-hating variety, even better.

Quick Calls

Songkick, a popular online service for finding live musical performances, now has a free app for Apple devices. It's generating rave reviews from users. ... The Apple version of Big Oven, for cooks, recently added a RecipeScan feature, which digitizes and stores your paper recipes. Take a photo of a recipe and BigOven transcribes it. It costs $1 per recipe, with bulk discounts available. ... With Country Music Radio, free on Android, you'll never be away from the genre as long as you have a network connection.

First Published: June 23, 2011, 4:00 a.m.