Technology Tuesday: Indispensable Travel Apps

Before we get rolling with this week’s topic, please allow me a few moments for a public service announcement:

For those of you that follow me on Twitter (@tmwsiy), you might have noticed that I had a little issue at my abode on Monday morning. My neutral wire coming into the house was dislodged during the storm we had over the weekend here in New England. Despite over 24 hours of no power and temperatures in the teens, I lived relatively well. I purchased a generator after the recent Hurricane for less than $300. I was able to power my refrigerator and freezer, Verizon FiOS interface box to allow phone & internet, a handful of lights, wood pellet stove for heat and charging cords for laptops, phones and coffee maker. However, there was a surge of power Monday morning that lit the house like a Christmas tree and made sounds like firecrackers.

Smoke filled the house and I had to call 911. Thankfully, there was not too much damage. A few smoldering wires and burnt surge protectors caused all the smoke.  Everything plugged into surge protectors survived just fine. BUT lesson be learned…you may not think, “I will never have a surge, it will never happen to me”, but it can happen in the blink of an eye. Many items plugged directly into the wall were literally toasted. The fire department said if I wasn’t home at the time, and power wasn’t cut, things could have been much worse. Spend the few dollars and have EVERYTHING you care about behind a surge protector. Interestingly, the cheap $10 strips did the exact same job as the $100 fancy ones that I had flat screen TV and audio system plugged into.


And also remember: if you have digital home phone service through the Internet  (like FiOS), your battery backup only lasts several hours. My power went out Saturday night at 10:00PM. By 8:00AM Sunday morning, the battery was gone and I had no dial tone. Additionally, my cell phone carrier, T-Mobile, had an outage in Massachusetts. So with no cell phone, and if I didn’t have a generator for digital phone, I would have been completely isolated. And then when the fire happened: what would I have done?

Be prepared as best as you can: $10 Energizer battery chargers for your cell phone, flashlights & lanterns, a generator, and a small emergency kit of first aid and other necessities well stocked can go leaps and bounds in turning a disastrous situation into merely an uncomfortable one.

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And now back to our regularly scheduled column:

Travel.

We all do it. Some, like me, travel weekly. Others may travel but once yearly to visit a loved one. No matter how often you travel, there are a few Apps that can make the miserable experience of airlines, airports, travel & hotels a little bit better.

Here’s a few apps you NEED to have on your mobile device. All are free.

  • Grand Daddy of All: TripIt

If you travel even sporadically, and you are not using TripIt: you are doing it wrong. In a nutshell, TripIt becomes your personal travel secretary. Make any travel plans online: airline, hotel or rent-a-car and simply forward your confirmations to [email protected]. Then, moments later, when you open the mobile app, your details are neatly and accurately transformed into a mobile itinerary. No need to open multiple emails, PDFs or airline websites to keep track of your travel details. The bulk of the features are free. A paid version allows automatic reimbursement if rates increase, points tracking and alerts to your mobile if flights are delayed, among many other features. Free version or Pro version: both are invaluable and once you start using, it is doubtful you will ever travel again without the benefit of this amazing service.

This is literally the single one app, besides email & browser, that I would have on my phone if I couldn’t have any other apps.

Platforms: Android, iPhone, Blackberry, Windows Phone 7

  • Priceline Negotiator

I was late to the game on this one.  I have to admit: I love Shatner.  I even love his albums. Has Been is fantastic. No joke. Of 235 reviews on Amazon, 173 are 5 star, 51 are 4 star and the remaining 10 votes rating less must be criminally insane. But travel spokesperson? Could Priceline actually be any good?

Ummmm…yes. It is amazing!

Fire up the app and be greeted by the cheesy, yet so satisfying jingle, “Priceline Negotiator!”… As with the web site, pick your city, dates and star level of hotel. Slide the level to what you want to pay basing it on a suggested level. Everything on the mobile app works intuitively, visually and quickly. You’ll need to punch in your payment details, and if your offer is accepted (sticking it to the man!), there’s nothing more to do. Your confirmation and payment is immediately taken care of.

I use the Negotiator almost exclusively now with all hotel room booking. I can arrive in a city, use the Negotiator and get a room less than half the rate if I booked through an 800-number or website. You can drill down to a neighborhood in a city with your request, and with Star-level request (Four star or Three star for example), you know you are getting a location that will be agreeable for you. A $200 room can becoms $100 and a $125 room can become as cheap as $60. Massive savings. Easy to use. Why isn’t everyone “sticking it to the man?”

Platforms: Android and iPhone

(Runner Up: Hotel Tonight. This app, on Android and iPhone offers deep discounts as Negotiator. However, despite potentially deeper discounts, it is more limited in available properties (Negotiator works practically everywhere). Further, as the name implies, it is only available for same night transactions. It typically inventories much higher priced hotels tiers and despite larger discounts, the overall cost of your room is likely to be higher with Hotel Tonight than Negotiator.)

 

  • Kayak

While TripIt is your personal travel secretary for booked travel, Kayak is your equally important assistant for all other travel needs. Fire up the app and easily search for flights, hotels, and rent-a-cars. You can also use Kayak as a directory for easy access to phone numbers of any airline, to track real time flight status, to get a directory of services available at any gate of all major airports (Where’s the Starbucks!?) and scores of other travel needs. While I primarily use Kayak as an airport and flight status portal, you can also tap it for currency exchange rates, airline fees reminder, rates alert and several other handy features.

Platforms: Android, iPhone, Blackberry

  • hipmunk

Kayak is fantastic for flight status, airport amenities, airline info and tons of other valuable tools. While it does offer flight search as well, hipmunk, is the single best utility to search for flights. Quickly, hipmunk displays available flights on a neat, clean and easy to visualize timeline. Dispensing of flights that make no sense (too many layovers, too costly, too long), hipmunk cuts the bullshit and allows you to quickly and easily find flight options that make sense.

Platforms: Android, iPhone

  • Jambase

Yes, I have this in my travel folder on my phone and not my music folder. I always know the local shows I am interested in seeing, but when on the road, the first thing I often do when I land is fire up JamBase. So much more convenient than pickling up the local rag, or Googling events listing at several different venues. Instant access to shows by radius from my Geo-Located position, means that I don’t even need to bother figuring out if the listing is in location too far to drive. I am often exhausted by the end of the day while on the road, but I’ve been able to catch many great shows that I likely never would have if it hadn’t been for JamBase in my travel bag of apps. (Hello Carolina Chocolate Drops, Donna Jean, Zach Deputy, Keller Williams and Trampled by Turtles: I’m talking to you!)

Platforms: Android, iPhone

Those are the absolute musts. A handful of other apps in my travel folder include:

  • Yelp! Every once in a while, I find a hidden dining gem with this handy tool.
  • My Hotel Room Seems like a stupid idea, but I love the simplicity and ease of this app. Touch the icon, type Room number and it stays in status bar for quick and easy memory recall. I can’t count the times that I’ve come back to hotel after long night out and had to go to Front Desk to get a reminder of room number: they all blend together especially after multi-consecutive nights on the road.  An iPhone equivalent is: Room This app badges the room number on your app icon.
  • GroupMe Previously highlighted app here on Technology Tuesday. Yes, despite the fact that it’s really a communication tool, I moved it over to my travel folder as well. I often travel with several people at a time and GroupMe becomes indispensable in keeping everybody on track and in touch.
  • Google Places Available by default for most Android users, and an additional app for iPhone users, Places makes searching the map a breeze: streamlined, quicker and easier than any other search method. No need for separate apps for coffee locators, bar locators, etc. Places finds what you are looking for fast.
And it goes without saying…
  • Google Maps Navigation
All mobile platforms have their pros and cons.  One of the pros for Android is the Navigation feature of Google Maps. Traffic information that is astonishingly accurate and up-to-date, quickly calculated routes, public transit info, voice turn-by-turn and a slew of amazing features. I can’t believe portable GPS units will be around for much longer as they are almost obsolete already. Traveling with an Android and Google Maps navigation makes life so much easier and simpler. No need to pack another device, forget another cord in a rental car, and have to God forbid, look at a paper map.
What travel apps are indispensable for you? Which ones do you use most when travelling? Let us know in the comments.
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Hidden Track Technology Tuesday
email: [email protected]
twitter@tmwsiy
voice-mail:  (781) 285-8696

Have an idea for an article? Product, app, or web service you are passionate about? Feel free to get in touch with me.

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One Response

  1. Great list I definitely use Priceline, Kayak, JamBase, and Yelp. I would note that KAYAK also has a trips feature which, as far as I know, is exactly the same as TripIt. I would also add milewise.com to this list. I’ve started using it in conjunction with Kayak to see if I can use points for air travel instead of cash. They aggregate all of your loyalty clubs (cars, hotels, airlines) and assign dollar values when they can. This has influenced me to move away from my JetBlue AMEX and get a CapOne Venture card because I realized the JetBlue points weren’t worth much at all. Highly recommend that CapOne Venture card if you like to travel.

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