 Today I want to talk to you guys about safety and how you can locate your friends while they're out boondocking or camping and how they can locate you and how you can make sure that you can get some medical services if you need them while you're out camping. Hey guys it's Robin with Creativity RV and today I want to talk to you about a very important topic and that is safety. I wanted to get this video out in a timely manner because you may have heard some sad news that in our nomadic community out here in Arizona there was a lady that was found deceased in her camper. I'm not here to sensationalize that. My condolences do go out to her friends and family but this situation really did spur some good conversations around the campfire for me and my friends and maybe also for you and so I wanted to give you some tools that I have in my book Be a Nomad, Change Your Life that has a huge section on safety and this is just one little piece that I want to actually walk you through in this video so you can find out how to share your location with people or they can share their location with you or how you can get some medical help if you're somewhere and you can't call somebody for it and you're in a life-and-death situation. My understanding of that recent situation is that the lady had shared her location with somebody and she was no longer at that location and then she didn't show up somewhere where she was expected so they had trouble finding her. They had to reach out to a bunch of people who guessed about where she might be camping and finally she was found. So what I want to share with you today is how you can always make sure that your location is shared with the people of your choice or that you can see the location of your friends if they want to share it with you. The easiest way to do that is through Google Maps. Now everybody can use this it's totally free. You can use it if you have an Android or an Apple or a computer. Now we've all gone into Google Maps probably and you get a screen that looks something like this right? So if you're in Google Maps and your GPS is on you're going to see this blue flashing light. That's me last week in Phoenix and don't worry you guys I'm no longer there. The first way that you can share your location with people is that you just press on that blue dot and then you're going to see something come up that says drop pin and you'll see the little share icon that looks like a piece of pie and you can send it your GPS coordinates on a one-time basis to anybody that you like via text or email. So if you don't want to share your location any longer than that one time this is a great way to do that. The second way that you can share your location with people is to actually go into Google Maps and tell it that you want to share a location with somebody. So I'm going to show you what that looks like really fast. Let's say that somebody shared their location with you like right here. So you see my little blue icon right with the red arrow and then you'll see the other arrow that is one of my friends with whom I share my location and she shares her location with me. It doesn't have to be a two-way street it can be a one-way street and it's easy to set up but it's really easy to see the people once you have this set up so I wanted to show you that first. If you go into Google Maps and you just minimize the screen and so you can see the country or the world or you know wherever your friends are they're going to come up wherever they are. So you see here that here's me and then here's my friend who was by court site last week when I took this picture. So with you know a quick little glance I can see where I am compared to them and where they are all over the world. Then if I just press her little icon there then this is going to come up. This is going to show me exactly where she is when the last time was her location was updated and her battery life which I'll explain in a second that's actually pretty important. But before I get off this screen I just want to show you guys that if you do hit somebody's name and this screen pops up you can also navigate through this screen to add other people or also to see all the other people on your list with whom you share a location. If you don't want to go in and just minimize the map to see the people that you're sharing locations with another way is just to go into Google Maps like this and then go up to the three dots on the upper left hand side. I think that's called the hamburger and then you're going to get a drop down. You want to go about halfway down the screen until you see location sharing and you hit that. If you go through this way you're going to get a list of all the people who share in their location with you. You can see my three people down at the bottom. My two friends are grayed out and then there's mom. Hey mom also from this screen you can add people see all the people you share with and then up at the right hand side you're going to see those three little dots. If you no longer want to see their location or you no longer want to share your location or a bunch of other stuff that's where you'd get that done. At the top of comments below I'm going to put a link for step-by-step directions from Google on how to add your location for people or see other people. It's really easy you guys but basically you just do the same thing I just showed. You go into that little hamburger icon and you say share my location or see other people's locations and then when you set it up it's going to give you a choice. You can share your location for three days at a time and by the way you can turn it off anytime during that period or you can say share my location on an ongoing basis until I turn it off. So that's what I do with my three friends. So they know that if they don't hear from me for a couple of days they can just go into Google Maps and go through those screens I just showed you and see where I am at all times. If they don't hear from me and they get nervous they know where I am. Now let me go back to the battery status which is really important. This is a feature that Google added just last year on to Google Maps. So you might be wondering why they're showing your battery power when you share your location with somebody. They do that so that if you haven't talked to somebody in a while you can go in and what's going to happen is as long as they were sharing their location and they have their GPS turned on you're going to see their last known location even if their phone dies and you can see their last amount of battery power. So let's say I went out boondocking and my family got nervous because they didn't know where I was. They could say you know where in the world is Robin they go into Google Maps they could see that I had like 10% battery life and that my last known location was updated one day ago. They know generally where I'm going to be. If I'm somewhere where my battery has died or I don't have a good signal they'll get the last known location and battery amount which is good because you don't want them to freak out just because your battery died and this will show them. Now like I said there are other ways that you can do this. Remember those three little dots I showed you at the top right of that shot that looks like an ellipse? That is for more. Now if you go in there you can actually tell Google Maps that you want to share through lots of other apps. You can do it through Facebook, through Twitter, WhatsApp, all kinds of places. Messenger. So if you don't want to use Google Maps you can absolutely do it through a bunch of other apps. So if your people do not have Google Maps or they don't want to have a Google account no problem at all you can just use one of these other apps. Easy and it's free. So now you guys know how to share your location with somebody else and you know how to see your friends locations who are sharing it with you and now I've said this to you guys before. The biggest thing that I'm personally concerned about from a safety perspective when I'm in the middle of nowhere is like a medical emergency. What happens if I'm incapacitated and I can't get to a phone or I can't drive out from somewhere and I don't have a cell signal. What I use is this personal locator beacon. This is a rescue link I did a bunch of research on different models. There are other models out there that do more than this that text people and you know do your laundry. I'm joking. I wish I would have gotten that one but this is about $216. I'll put a link for it below. It's an expense. I didn't actually get this for about the first year I was on the road because I didn't want to pay the money but it makes me feel a lot better. So here's the deal with this thing. If you are somewhere and you are in a life and death situation you flip open the back of this and you hit a button. It has a one-time use and if you ever have to use it then they actually do replace the battery inside so you don't have to buy another one if something happens. But it's not meant to be used all the time. In fact you get in a lot of trouble if you use this if you were not in a life and death situation. So it's not to be used if you just like spraying your ankle. But let's say you're out hiking somewhere and you break your leg and you cannot hike out of there and you don't have a cell signal and nobody knows where you are. That's a life and death situation. So you can use this. If you have a stroke or a heart attack or something and you can make it to this button, I personally keep it right by my front door just in case you hit the button and help is going to be on the way. So you know person by person you can decide if it's worth the expense. For me it was. If you have a medical condition but you still like to boondock I recommend getting one of these. This is an important topic you guys. I want to make sure that all of you are sharing your location with someone if you feel comfortable doing that. If you're going to go out and camp solo so that people can find you if they need to or that you can find your friends if you haven't heard from them in a while. You can just go right into Google Maps and find them. And also if you have a medical condition or you're in a life threatening situation, there is a way if you choose it that people can come and find you and help you. So I hope you guys found this helpful. If you did, please do give it a thumbs up. Leave me a comment and let me know if you have some other suggestions for people. Very important. I wish you all happy travels out there and be free.