5 Free and Useful iPhone Apps For Travelers
Turn your iPhone into an even more versatile travel tool by installing these 5 free and useful applications. These iPhone applications will help you keep travel of flights, book hotel reservations, and connect with other travelers in real time.
For those of you who travel without a cell phone but have an iPod Touch, many of these applications will work for it as well.
Travelocity TravelTools
This free iPhone application stores your itineraries and lets you check the statuses of all your connecting flights. Get alternate flights if you’re really in a rush and book them directly from the application itself. You can also find hotels (and reviews) near your current location or in your destination city and book them when you land.
One one the best features Travelocity TravelTools offers are security wait line estimates for airports across the US.
SitOrSquat
Similar to The Bathroom Diaries, SitOrSqaut is a detailed database of over 50,000 bathrooms all over the world. The internal iPhone GPS tells the application where you are and lets you search for bathrooms and refine the search criteria (i.e. handicap restrooms) if you want.
Those of you in the US who don’t have iPhones can text Mizpee to find nearby toilets.
Skype
An essential software for digital nomads, Skype comes in an iPhone application version. Skype, the iPhone application lets you do all of the wonderful (and money saving) things that Skype the full blown computer application does. Call or chat with other Skype users for free and make outgoing international calls for much less than your provider would charge.
Currency
Stay on top of the latest exchange rates for over 90 currencies for free. Simple and straightforward, Currency has the rates for all of the major currencies you’ll run into.
The Travel Channel GO
One thing I noticed in the Apple iTunes store was that there was a city guide in the form of an iPhone application for every city imaginable. Unfortunately not many of them were free, but I stumbled on The Travel Channel GO, which does a good job as a replacement. It comes with Travel Channel restaurant, hotel, and nightlife recommendations by both Travel Channel’s hosts and other travelers reporting from their iPhones – all for free.
If you really want a more detailed city guide for your iPhone, individual iPhone application guides run about 99 cents each.
Other Options
There are a number of other useful iPhone and iPod Touch hacks for travelers and other iPhone apps for travelers that you can get on your device with a little bit of jail breaking. Many of these applications will require Internet access so brush up on how to bum a Wi-Fi signal on the road before you have trouble finding a good network connection.
Remember that you don’t need fancy hardware like an iPhone (although it doesn’t hurt) to become location independent. A cheap unlocked Nokia and a decent laptop can make for a large, but suitable iPhone replacement.
[photo by: William Hook]
UFO Sightseeing Hotspots
Since it’s not possible to explore the galaxy like the crew of the star ship Enterprise yet, you can instead travel to these UFO hotspots in the hopes that the galaxy will visit you. While it can’t be guaranteed you’ll see anything in the skies above these cities of an extraterrestrial origin, these places give you the best odds.
UFO sightings in towns and cities tend to come in clusters, with periods of high activity generally followed by a complete lull (sometimes forever) of activity. Aliens (or overactive imaginations), it turns out, seem to favor a couple of international cities that would be fun to visit – E.T.s or not.
Mexico City, Mexico
The world’s number on place for UFO sightings, the skies over Mexico City have been home to a number of reports lights in the sky and round silver objects. Mysterious lights in the sky were even been reported by the Mexican Air Force as confirmed unidentified flying objects as you can see in the video from 2007 below.
Scotland
Over 300 UFOs are reported in Scotland each year, four times as many as in France or Italy. While 90% of those are eventually explained as man made vehicles, if you’re curious about the other 10% head to the central Scottish areas of West Lothian and Stirlingshire. Of course, if you don’t have luck finding any UFOs you can always head down to Loch Ness.
Perhaps not unrelated, the UK is also where more crop circles are reported than anywhere else in the world.
Sydney, Australia
The winner of the best city to visit travel tournament in 2009, Sydney, Australia has been having a rash of UFO sightings lately. While the reports aren’t specifically of the UFOs themselves, you might be able to get up close and personal with the little green (or gray) men themselves. A number of people are claiming they’ve been abducted to medical facility in the Blue Mountains.
Kansas City, Missouri
UFOs don’t care too much for the eastern or southern United States it seems but Midwest is always a popular choice for vacationing aliens. Hop a flight to Kansas City, MO where the average number of UFO sightings has skyrocketed to one or two a day recently. I didn’t see any while I was there but was dealing with a dead camera battery as it was.
Aside from the recent UFO invasion, the Traveling Mamas gives us another reason to love Kansas City.
Other Good Places To See UFOs
- Roswell, New Mexico – New Mexico in general is one of the busiest places in the US for UFO reports. If you can’t catch UFOs in the sky check out the Roswell UFO Museum to find quite a few of them.
- Texas and Colorado – There seems to be a spike in UFO sightings in both states.
- Near Military Installations - Most UFO sightings happen near or around military bases.
- The Polar Regions - Ok, so you probably won’t see UFOs in the polar regions but can see other extra terrestrial lights in the sky. I’m talking about auroras (northern and southern lights).
As I mentioned above, UFO sightings tend to come in clusters and fluctuated over time so don’t be disappointed when if you don’t see anything. There are plenty of natural extraterrestrial travel wonders you can see from around the world at the right times of the year. Next week, I’ll give you some good sights from the cosmos and UFO alternatives so you can see some of what the universe has to offer from Earth.
[photos by: POSITiv, Le Petit Poulailler, dhammza]
7 Reasons You Won’t Travel The World
According to last weeks’ poll, the majority of you are planning on traveling the world one day and some of you will be leaving soon. Unfortunately many people who makes plans to travel the world never do and, as they say, “life gets in the way.” This list is only a beginning, I’d like for you to add to it with some helpful comments where you find it lacking – but here are 7 reasons you won’t travel the world.
- You are comfortable at your job.
- You think it’s expensive and don’t know how to pay for it.
- You don’t know where you’d go.
- You’ll miss your family and friends.
- You have kids or will soon.
- You don’t know what your significant other will say.
- You will travel the world but maybe a few years from now.
I don’t want to be negative or pessimistic so later this week I’ll examine how to overcome these obstacles (and the ones you add) so that you can, really travel the world either as part of a round the world trip or extended global journey.
[photo by: yuan2003]
Do You Want To Travel Around The World? [POLL RESULTS]
It seems that most of you reading are itching to leave your desks behind to travel the world. When I asked this question last month I didn’t think the results would be so overwhelming.
Do You Want To Travel Around The World?
- Yes I'm planning on it one day (66%, 19 Votes)
- I already am (14%, 4 Votes)
- I'd rather take a couple of vacations every year (14%, 4 Votes)
- Not really, I'm happy where I am (7%, 2 Votes)
- I've already traveled around the world (0%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 29
Loading ...On Monday I’ll take a look at why you will, or won’t be able to leave everything and pack up to travel the world.
