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iPad/iPhone Travel Apps

We’re big Apple fans.  We have all the Apple products.  Computers, laptops, iPods, Apple TV and the iPhone.  What about the iPad you say?  Well, we’re waiting for v2 later this fall.  We travel everywhere with our iPhone.  It’s kind of like a 7 in 1 tool.  Many people try to load as many apps as they can on their phone.  Personally, we’d rather put on apps that are useful.  Since we always have our iPhones or iPods, many apps come in handy while traveling or even while at home.  Here are some that we have on our phones that work great.

Flight Track - Flight track is different than most flight tracking apps.  It sync’s with your iPhone’s calendar and TripIt, has live flight tracking, real time status for weather, delays, cancelations, as well as airport gate information for over 4000 airports worldwide.  You can also see the inbound flight information for the plane you’re about to board.  A very handy app to have if you spend time in airports.

Star Map Pro – Since we travel to many unique, out-of-the-way destinations, it’s always interesting to look at the night time sky.  Once you get out of the cities and into the countryside, it’s amazing what you can see in the sky.  When you travel into the Southern Hemisphere, it really gives you a whole new perspective on things you can’t see from home.  With a catalog of over 2 million objects in the sky along with details for many of them, you’ll be amazed at what you find.  The best thing about this app is that it works “offline”, so you don’t need to use wireless minutes or data.  And, using the built in Location information and accelerometer built into the phone, you simply start the app, hold it up to the sky and it will automatically bring up the map for your location and show you the objects you’re looking at.  Very cool.

Convert -  Is a very simple-to-use unit calculator.  Need to know how many litres make a gallon?  How many milliliters are in an ounce?  Very handy when traveling to countries that use the metric system.  The best thing is how easy this app is to use.

Motion X GPS – This is a great app if you like to get out and do some walking or hiking.  It’s a full featured GPS that keeps track of where you are and where you’re headed.  All of the basic GPS functionality is built-in:  waypoints, destination coordinates, maps, elevation, altitude, speed, etc.  Especially handy if you’re in an unfamiliar area.  Since it uses location services on the iPhone, make sure your battery is well charged if you’re going on a longer hike.

World FactBook - The CIA website has some of the best up-to-date information on every country throughout the world.  Now you can take a scaled-down version of that information with you on your iPhone.  A very handy reference guide to have with you at all times.

iTimeZone – It’s hard enough to keep track of time where you are, let alone somewhere else.  This handy app works great at displaying time in just about any location throughout the world.

Trip Advisor – This app eliminates the need for opening up a browser on your iPhone when you need quick information about a place or business.  Get a condensed version of all of the information on TripAdvisor in this handy application.

We’ll bring you more favorites in the next week or so….so stay tuned!

Photos & Video

There’s nothing better than getting back from a trip and reliving your travel experiences with your photos & video footage.  Before you leave on your trip, make sure:

  1. You have plenty of memory cards. The last thing you want is to miss out on being able to take photos half way through your trip.
  2. Don’t put your eggs all in one basket. While it might be more convenient to buy one large capacity memory card, we prefer to use a few smaller capacity cards.  That way if your camera or card are lost, you don’t lose all your photos.
  3. Make sure you empty your memory card. Before you go, make sure your memory card is empty and you’ve downloaded past photos.
  4. Make sure your camera’s batteries are charged before you leave. That way you can hit the ground running and don’t have to worry about charging your batteries right away.
  5. Make sure you have the right power adapter for your destination. You want to make sure you can recharge your batteries once you get to your destination.
  6. Lens cloth. Make sure you take a small lens cloth.  If you get the right one, you won’t even need any lens cleaner and you’ll be ready for any dust, dirt or fingerprints that may get on your lens.

Laptop

If you’re going to be traveling with your laptop, here’s a few tips:

  1. Backup your laptop before you leave. That way if you lose your laptop or it is stolen, you’ll have a current backup of your data
  2. Secure your laptop. Setup a Logon ID and Password to access your laptop.  It’s one extra layer of security that can help protect your information if your laptop is stolen.
  3. Plan on alternate protection.  Hotel safes vary in size.  Sometimes there’s not a safe at all.  Sometimes safes aren’t safe. Plan on an additional way to secure your laptop if necessary.  Pac-Safe is one way to protect your computer.
  4. Power supply.  Make sure you have the right electrical adapter for your destination country.

File Sharing & Online Services

What happens if you lose your hotel confirmation while you’re on your trip?  Worse yet, what if you lose your passport?  While everyone should always take copies of important documents (like your passport) with you when you travel, as well as copies of itineraries, confirmations, etc., it’s easy to misplace or lose them.

Our backup plan is to use an online file sharing & storage site, such as Mobile Me or Dropbox. These sites allow you to securely store files on the internet and then you can access them from anywhere that you can logon to the internet.  You can store copies of your itineraries, passport, travel insurance documents, visas, etc, then be able to download or print them from wherever you are.  Dropbox is free, while there is an annual charge for MobileMe.  There are other services available as well.

Your files are safely stored and accessible only by you.  As an extra measure of precaution, we store all of our files in PDF format and encrypt them with a password.  Even if someone were to find out our login credentials to the site, they’d also need to know the password to the file to open or view it.

Personal VPN

If you’re going to take your laptop with you when you travel, consider getting a personal VPN.  Considering all of the different places you might be connecting to the internet, even with a firewall, it’s a good idea to “protect” your web browsing and email.  The best way is to use a personal VPN.  A personal VPN protects your information once it leaves your computer.  Your firewall and virus protection don’t do that.  When you use an internet connection or hotspot, you don’t know who may be “sniffing” that traffic just looking for personal information, credit card numbers, etc.  Who knows who’s in the hotel room down the hall that’s monitoring your internet traffic on the hotel network.

We’ve used WiTopia for PersonalVPN service for over three years.  It’s extremely reliable and really doesn’t have any affect on internet speed.  It’s very reasonable at around $60 per year and it’s easy to install and use for both Windows and Mac users.

Wireless Phones

We take the view that vacation is vacation and it’s good to remain “disconnected”.  There are occasions when it is handy to have a wireless phone when traveling internationally.  If you think you’ll be taking your phone, before you leave make sure you:

  1. Verify your phone will work outside of the country.
    Most foreign countries outside of North America use GSM technology.  Most Smartphones utilize GSM, but many regular cellphones in the US do not.
  2. Make sure your phone is activated to work on international networks.
    Most carries levy an extra surcharge for this service and it must be activated before you leave the US.
  3. International cell phone and data roaming can be expensive.
    Make sure you check with your carrier and see what roaming rates are at your destination.  Data transfer adds up quickly.  You may want to turn off your email and web browsing capability while overseas.

Another alternative, based upon your destination, is to purchase a world cellphone or rent a sattelite phone if you’re traveling to extremely remote areas.

Buying SIM cards at your destination can be cumbersome and some phones no longer have SIM cards that you can change.  If you’re going to be in a destination for a month or more, consider just buying a disposable cell phone when you get there with prepaid minutes.

IAH TIP: Mobal Communications is our world cellphone carrier and has reasonable rates for most countries.  You pay no monthly fee, only for the time you use the phone.  They also rent sattelite phones if you’re going to be in remote areas.  We’ve used their service for over 4 years and have been very happy with both the service and call quality.