There is a Travel App for That: Where To? - Discover your next destination

Where To? by FutureTap

This app enables you to locate almost anything nearby, including the nearest ATM, burger joint, medical provider, etc.

In some instances, while doing a search, you might not need to even type in what you are looking for as the app comes preset with 700 customizable categories and 2,400 brands. Just tap your way to various things nearby. You can search for recreational activities and categories ranging from medical, organization, emergency, entertainment, travel and attractions.
Where To? also has available Augmented Reality, which lets you explore a stunning new way of visualization (iPhone 4 or 3GS only; available via In-App-Purchase for only $0.99 for all devices under your iTunes account, free trial available). Your points of interest will be displayed on top of reality. It‘s more intuitive than ever to check out nearby locations.

Can't decide where to eat? This app can help there too. Shake your iPhone and it will pick a good restaurant for you to try. Keep shaking until you find a restaurant you would like to check out.

Video review of the Where To? app

Why good to have on a trip:
- Can be used to find local business nearby including, but not limited to, restaurants
- Able to get driving directions to any location chosen
- Available in 10 different languages, covering most of the world with locally optimized search
- Winner of the 2009 and 2010 Best App Ever Awards in the category “Best Travel App
- Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later
- Utilizes Google Maps

Available on iTunes: Where To?

Other cool travel apps:
MotionX GPS HD - all the maps and navigation instruments you need for your outdoor life: walking, hiking, sailing, off-roading, flying, geocaching, or exploring, anywhere in the world.

What app do you use to find things nearby? Leave a Comment

Newspapers = Obsolete? or Reborn?

Newspapers = Obsolete? or Reborn?

"I was on the train one morning. Alas without my Kindle. And as I looked around, I noticed that no one was carrying newspapers on my train. It seemed odd and interesting at the same time.
I took a closer look and saw just how many iPads and Kindles were bieng used and then how many of those users were looking at newspapers. Quite interesting. One person was on WSJ.com, another was on USA Today." - SG

Doing some research and looking on iPad as well as the Kindle store, it looks like while you can get free apps for most of the well known print publications, you would still need a subscription to get the newest version. If you enjoy reading it now, it is a good chance you would go with the digital subscription as well. There are still folks though that prefer, at least for the time being, to hold in their hands a print copy of a paperback or a newspaper. I think it would be at a sliding scale based on generation. For myself, while I like the accessibility and speed of digital publishing, once in awhile I like to have along a magazine rather than an expensive tech gadget that I have to be careful not leave or toss someplace.

Recently, Ziff Davis, one of the larger publishers, announced that they will be moving to all digital publication in 2012. It is more likely than not, that others will follow suit. Other large publishers also made news a few months back by putting up pay walls on the digital version of newspapers. While there was quite a bit of controversy regarding the move, it has been relativity successful for The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
Moreover, there are several applications that have been designed and have gained significant popularity as aggregators of news from well known newspapers and magazines. These apps are thriving since they are presenting articles from various publication within one easy to use interface. One such popular app is Flipboard, which is available for most mobile platforms.

So, are newspapers obsolete? I do not think so. Publishing is a very old industry that is meeting the new digital age. And as with most cycles there are always shakeouts. Some will survive and continue to thrive by being relative and providing great content and/or being reborn as digital publishers.

What do you think about the prospects of the newspapers?
How do you occupy your time during the commute? Leave a Comment

Did You Know?:
Letter to Our Readers: Times Begins Digital Subscriptions
How the Amazon Kindle Works

There is a Travel App for That: Trip It Travel Organizer

Trip It Travel Organizer – you’ll never have to dig through your printed, paper itineraries and email again.
TripIt (on iTunes) can connect to your Gmail (or Google Apps) account to import trip data, or you can just forward itineraries you get from booking sites or airlines and it will organize all the departures, arrivals, and other points during the trip in sequential order. TripIt instantly recognizes reservations from 3,000+ booking sites including cruises, restaurants, concerts and more by determining and looking up the confirmation number. It also syncs with your calendar to keep all the plans up to date.
My wife usually keeps us pretty organized during trips with all the bookings, confirmations, and to-do lists stored neatly in a folder and also organized by day of travel. Though I think with the new upgrade to an iPhone, we will be planning out our next venture with this app to make it easier and to keep everyone up to date on the itinerary. I most definitely need that as there are times that I am not 100% of what is on the agenda. ...

TripIt (no ads) (a paid version of the app) offers all the tools minus the ads. TripIt Pro (a subscription service) offers additional features. It monitors your flights for potential airfare savings, and sends you status alerts and other helpful reminders while you’re traveling, and is especially helpful for frequent travelers. As part of pro membership you do not get ads within the app also

Why good to have on a trip:
- Do not need to carry around print outs of all of the reservations and confirmations
- All trip data with a confirmation # is stored and digital collated
- You can easily share trip plans with family or colleagues
- Compatible with iPhone and iPod touch. Requires iPhone OS 3.2 or later.
- It's Free

How to Use These Great Travel Apps For Your Android Phone

What others are saying: TripIt Press Room

How do you keep organized for your trips? Leave a Comment

California Tripping

Late September, I and my wife took the first trip to California for for both of us.
We kicked it off by landing in San Francisco and touring most of the city. It was a lot of walking and up and down the hills. Next, we went North to Napa and Sonoma valleys to check out the vineyards and the wines. Afterwards, we passed through SF once again crossing over the Golden Bridge on the way to Monterey. We made an overnight pit stop in Solvang. A little town on a way to Santa Barbara, which was gorgeous with Dutch style houses and community and also great Dutch style food. Then onto Santa Barbara, where the weather was great and we had a hotel a few steps away from the ocean. Though it was a bit on a chilly side in the evenings as well as the water. We next made a stop at Venice Beach, it was a sight to see and experience. And our final destination was Los Angeles where we spent 2.5 days touring the city and all of the touristy sights we avoided elsewhere during most of the trip.

Here, in more or less order of appearance, are some of the travel gadgets we had along with us:

Space Bags - Before even getting to the airport my wife worked her magic, together with SpaceBags to pack all the cloth and travel accessories for a week and a half trip into only 2 carry-ons! That is right, on the way to Cali we had no bags to check-in. This meant that we saved money on airline fees and also hassle and time of picking it up after the flight. We did however have one to check-in on the way back filled with wine bottles and other goodies.

Scanner bag - These travel tag size bags are made and distributed by the same company as the Knee Defender, which I wrote about in "Airplane travel gadgets to keep you moving." I bought 3 of them not too long ago and got to try them first hand on this trip. These bags are great. Once at the security check point, I loaded the bag up with our wallets, keys, phones and so on. Zipped it up and it was ready to go through the scanner together with the carry-on. There were no coins to dig up from plastic container afterwards or having to try to stuff things in your pockets as more and more bags and people are coming through. We pulled off to the side, got everything back in its places, folded the bags up and were quickly on our way to the gate.

Headphones - I have wrote quite a bit about a lot of benefits of having headphones with you on a trip. Well, for this trip, I actually totally forgot to bring them. And how did I miss them! I especially kicked myself for not taken them when on the plane. They had headphones for sale, and I would have even got those plastic ones, but they only had the large, bring back the '80s, type. I managed through the flight, though it seems now I am making up for that brain gap as I have a pair of earphones in just about everywhere.

Kindle - My wife had hers with her for the flight. She rarely goes anywhere without it. I went low tech for my reading material and had a magazine with me.

Joby Gorillapod - it was great to have this gadget along as we were able to get some shots of both of us in the picture while on hikes and less crowded, touristy, areas. Here are some samples where we used it:
 - on hike through the Muir Woods
 - hike up Lincoln Blvd towards Golden Gate bridge and walk through SF park
 - secluded pier with barely anyone around, but with ridiculously great view of the bridge from a different angle than any of the tourist attraction spots.
We had it wrapped on railing in one of the shots, then mounted on top of a pier poll and spread out on a rock in others

Of course we had along our Cannon Powershot SI120 for those type of shots. I didn't get a Joby for SLR as previous versions were not rated well to handle those type of cameras. The newer generations might have improved on this.
(By the way, if interested in more information about photography, check out a great blog - Digital Photography School)

Rechargeable Batteries - The batteries from the "Rechargeable batteries charger - saves money saves planet" post fame, are still running great. Same four batteries were reused through out the trip with the charger, which is light and small, and recharges the batteries quickly and with plenty of juice to last through thousands of pictures. - not actually exaggerating here, as per final count, we ended up taking close to 3000 photos on the trip.

GPS - was also with us on a trip as we did a road trip from SF to LA after renting a car. We saved probably around $200 bringing our own. And it saved us time since I was already used to operating our Garmin and following its directions. It also came in handy in finding streets once we left the car in a parking lot and went wondering around town.

Our San Francisco excursions/tours

 Did You Know?:
- Virgin America has electrical outlets at each seat. These include a regular outlet and a USB one. They also have free wi-fi on board.

What do you take with you on a long trip? Leave a Comment