If you've ever fallen out with your friends or family while on holiday, you'll wonder why taking a break is meant to be so enjoyable. Perhaps sometimes the best travelling companion isn't a human at all - but a far more entertaining and informative gadget.
A plethora of Web sites, apps and portable devices have made planning, booking and enjoying a trip a doddle. We Google cities we can barely spell, book flights and hotels online after conducting price comparisons, read destination reviews posted by other travellers, and enter the GPS co-ordinates into our phones for directions to a fabulous restaurant someone raved about in their blog.
We can even zoom in on Google Maps to see if that little village in the mountains is really worth a detour.
Once you arrive, you BBM your friends to tell them you're safe, then post some stunning photos to Twitter and Facebook, so all the strangers who follow you can see what a glamorous life you lead. If you're bored and lonely, just lie! And if you do get bored, you can listen to music, browse your regular news Web sites or settle down with an e-book, thanks to the travel pal in your pocket.
Oddly, all the above is an anathema to Ian Wright, the English TV presenter who hosted the adventure series Globe Trekker.
Wright, 47, is an unashamed techno-Luddite. He reluctantly got a cellphone a few years ago when his wife insisted he keep in touch during his journeys. “When I went to India in my 20s, I was away for six months and I rang my mom once,” he says. “Technology makes you crazy because if you send a text and haven't got a reply in one millisecond, you're panicking. When I'm abroad, I want to enjoy where I am. I don't want to spend four or five hours walking around looking at things, then spend the next 18 hours on the internet telling people about it,” he says. “With too much technology, your brain switches off a bit and becomes mushy.”
Wright doesn't even have a GPS. “I like a map so I know where I am in relationship to the world. I have quite a good directional instinct and I know if I head this way, I'll get there.”
Surprisingly, he is a fan of the mobile browser Opera Mini, which he has just adopted in the interests of saving money. “It gives me the Internet around the world, which is an extraordinary breakthrough, because my phone bill was off the scale. While I was travelling, I was doing stupid things like getting sports results and the data was costing me a fortune. With Opera Mini, hopefully it's going to be cheap as chips.”
One gadget he does love is his digital camera, which he only acquired four years ago. “I wish I'd started using it earlier so I'd have a catalogue of the places I've been,” he says. He chose a modest model so all the knobs and buttons wouldn't intimidate him. “I just need one that can take fantastic photos if I snap away. There are mad little bits on it to enhance the colours and it's brilliant that anyone can take excellent pictures.”
In complete contrast, local radio presenter and renowned geek Aki Anastasiou loves using IT for his travel plans. He tries to travel light, he says, but struggles because he wants to pack so many gadgets.
With too much technology, your brain switches off a bit and becomes mushy.
Ian Wright, travel show host
He always packs a backup charger and USB cables to charge various devices from a laptop. One essential gadget is his Skross World Adapter Pro+USB multi-plug with various plug and USB points to charge two or three devices at a time.
“Over the years, as cellphone cameras have improved, I no longer take a camera with me. A cellphone is good enough,” Anastasiou says.
“For me, the apps are critical. I swear by Tripit (www.tripit.com). It keeps my flights, hotel booking, car hire and train tickets all in one place and syncs seamlessly, plus it updates me on any delays. I also love the app Expense Magic (https://expensemagic.com) to capture all my receipts and keep track of expenses while I'm travelling.”
For keeping in touch, Skype, Whatsapp and Viber are critical, eliminating the need for an international SIM card or roaming fees. “WiFi is wonderful!” he says.
Anastasiou also needs access to his documents wherever he is, so cloud storage services like Google Drive, Dropbox and Skydrive are essential. “I scan all my travel documents and have them stored in one of these cloud services,” he says.
“Finally, I always keep a stash of chocolate in my backpack. You never know when you will need that energy boost.”
Phillip Gronvold has a hectic travel schedule as product manager of Norway's Opera software, which develops the Opera Web browsers. “In the past 12 months, I have been on 81 flights, but a few gadgets, tools and luxuries can make travel a joy rather than a pain,” he says.
Gronvold's first recommendation is decent earphones. “Whether you're listening to your own music or watching the onboard entertainment, these make a world of difference.” His ambient noise-blocking earphones are expensive, but way more comfortable that those pesky earbud types.
Books are heavy, so invest in a tablet or e-reader, and choose a model that gives you reading, music, work, games and movies all in one, he says.
Gronvold naturally recommends installing the Opera Mini browser on your cellphone. Opera Mini shrinks Web pages by up to 90% before they appear on screen, slashing data download costs even on really old phones.
Try these technologies to enhance your trips. Just remember to look up from your gadgets occasionally to enjoy the destination.
Research Web sites:
The excellent www.booking.com spans a vast global selection of hotels, with heavy discounts and instant confirmations. There are maps and reviews, and cancellation is free until the day before your arrival. You can download the booking engine to your cellphone.
Travelocity.com is US-oriented, but does great flight comparisons from anywhere to anywhere, as well as hotel bookings. It's a useful starting point for tips on what to do in the US or Canada.
Tripadvisor.com is another all-in-one site for hotel and flight bookings, details about local attractions and restaurant reviews for major cities around the world. Users can post reviews and ask travel-related questions. TripAdvisor's mobile app is free to download.
When you're on the move and want to know what something costs, the Web site xe.com offers instant currency conversions.
Travel guides
Lonely Planet's mobile City app covers 20 cities so far, with sections on culture, history, food and art, and bars and restaurants. The info is GPS-enabled so you can see your location on dynamic maps. Try Lonely Planet's mobile-friendly Web site (m.lonelyplanet.com) for photos, maps and info about 8 500 destinations. Location-based technology shows nearby restaurants, nightlife, hotels, shops and sights.
No comprendo?
Lonely Planet also offers a series of language guides for mobile phones with 600 phrases that are actually useful, covering greetings, sightseeing, accommodation, food and health. The Audio Phrasebooks for about $10 gives the phonetic pronunciation and an audio translation.
Google also wants to speak your language, and its Google translate app lets you type or speak a phrase into the phone for instant translation into any of 15 languages. Just don't slur, or you could get into all sorts of escapades.
GPS systems
If you're fed up with your partner's backseat driving, trade them in for Jeremy Clarkson. The bombastic Top Gear presenter has recorded instructions for TomTom GPS systems with his far-from-dulcet tones ordering you to do stunts like pull a handbrake. If you're more retro than turbo, Garmin offers the voices of Yoda and Darth Vader. Although taking directions from Yoda rather ambiguous could prove.
Google, the master of mapping, has a free Google Maps Navigation app for Android devices, featuring satellite images, street views, traffic news, voice search and audio directions.
Trick photography
Instagram has superseded Photoshop as the quick way to make even duff photos look fabulous. Its digital devilry adds filter effects to transform snaps into works of art. Instagram also lets you instantly share photos to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, Foursquare and Posterous.
Another popular app is Camera+, which offers 6x zoom, a stabiliser, timer, and a clarity filter. Or try Magic Shutter, which lets an iPhone record light for longer than usual to take good pics in dark conditions.
BlackBerry Travel
BlackBerry Travel is a wide-ranging app for flight and hotel bookings, a currency converter, weather forecasts and sharing your travel plans via e-mail or LinkedIn. When a booking confirmation or itinerary arrives in your inbox, the Travel app is automatically updated with those details. It can identify problems with the itinerary, such as timing conflicts, and suggest solutions.
Light me up
A quirky app that turns your cellphone into a torch is useful for dark nights when you need a pee and can't remember where the toilet is.
Try iFlash4, a basic flash activation app for the iPhone 4 with a simple on-off switch. It automatically shuts off after 10 minutes so you don't waste battery power. Megalight is more advanced, and even has a blip mode for sending messages in Morse code. Okay, not too useful nowadays, perhaps. The OI Flashlight app keeps a phone's backlight on for a constant source of light until you switch it off.
Finally, if calculating time differences in your head isn't your fort'e, try the World Clock-Time Zones app that displays the time from several countries simultaneously. But that could end the fun of 'accidentally' phoning the boss at 3:00am to tell him how much fun you're having.
First published in the August 2012 issue of ITWeb Brainstorm magazine.
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