Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Travelling with an iPhone (part 2)

In part 1, I went through the apps on my iPhone which I have used while traveling domestically, either on cross-country road trips (Houston to KSC), city stays (Las Vegas), or regional trips (San Francisco Bay Area). In part 2, I'll cover the travel-related apps, in particular those specifically for Europe.

If you have any comments or suggestions, please add them at the bottom, I'm always looking for the best app for something.

Travelling with an iPhone (part 1)

In spring 2000, I drove from Houston to KSC for the launch of space shuttle mission STS-101 with paper maps. I was the only one in my group who didn't have a cell phone at the time, and it was on that trip that I realized how useful it really was for coordinating a group of people who were staying at different hotels and making last-minute plan changes. I got my first cell phone shortly after, and as a direct result of, that trip. I think I'm on my 5th phone now, an iPhone 4, and looking back I'm amazed at how much I use it these days and how indispensable it is. I can't imagine not using it and wonder how we got along without smartphones.

With that in mind, I decided to go back and look at my iPhone and see what apps I used on my recent trips to KSC, about 11 years after that last trip in which I did not have a cell phone at all, as well as Las Vegas and the San Francisco Bay Area, and update it for my upcoming Europe trip.

Part 1 of this post (since it got too long) looks at everything I used or plan to use while travelling, except the actual travel-related apps, which will go into part 2. Once I figure it out, I'll write another one about how I plan to manage a cell phone over there.

What do you use on your Smartphone while travelling?

Saturday, August 6, 2011

iTunes Playlist

Sometimes I make an iTunes playlist inspired by a vacation place (like Las Vegas) or theme (road trip to see a space shuttle launch). I decided to make one for my Europe trip. My rules, such as they are, are that the song title and/or lyrics have to relate somehow - even tenuously - to the location or activity. I'm taking flights from Houston to NYC to London and Madrid to Frankfurt to Houston but mostly trains between cities, thus each city leading off with a train song. What else would you add?