BootsnAll's Travel Typepad

Happy New Year, Travel & Tech Style

The turning of the calendar to reveal a brand new year brings with it all kinds of tasks. There are resolutions to make (and subsequently break), there's Christmas money to spend on all the stuff you wanted but didn't get as gifts, and learning how to use the gadgets you did find under the tree.

And, of course, there are travel plans to make.

This is one of the busiest times of year for travel planning, as people come off the chaos of the holidays and focus with renewed emphasis on the places they'd like to go in the coming year. Perhaps you're gearing up for an epic spring break trip from college. Maybe you're gauging where you'll go by some of the 2011 travel predictions you've read. Or maybe you've resolved to stick to a budget this year, making budget travel tips the most important ones you'll read.

If you were lucky enough to receive a new tech toy for Christmas, then be sure to look into ways to make it work for you as a travel tool. You don't even have to have a smartphone to start using Twitter for travel (although smartphones do make it easier), and by following helpful people you can get insider tips on whatever location you're visiting as well as get money-saving advice from people who know the area.

There are a quadrillion iPhone apps out there (seriously, it feels like that when you're navigating the App Store), so it's probably not surprising that many of them are travel-related. What might surprise you, however, is how many of these travel iPhone apps can help you travel smarter, cheaper, and with less stuff in your bag. The iPhone is an incredible multi-tasker that can serve so many purposes you may be able to leave several of your old tech tools at home next time you hit the road.

What travel-related or tech-related ways are you ringing in the start of a new year?

Can you make your smartphone work for you when you travel?

It seems we become more addicted to technological advancements with every passing day, and although many of them were designed to make our lives easier they often end up complicating things as well. As travelers, many of us relish the times when we can be truly disconnected from whatever the latest gadget is... And yet at the same time, some of those gadgets prove to be incredibly useful in helping us "get away from it all" in the first place.

With a few taps on an iPhone, iPad, or Android phone (or actual clicks of keys on a BlackBerry) you can access all kinds of handy travel tools on the go. If you're not so intent on disconnecting, then you can let your Twitter followers or Facebook friends know what you're up to. If you're trying to keep social networking to a minimum, you can still utilize some of the cool features of a smartphone when you're traveling.

A favorite with many travelers I know is the Kayak app (available for the iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry). It lets you search for cheap air tickets from anywhere. Whether you're planning your next escape from the airport terminal on your way home from your current trip or you're just sitting in the doctor's office and killing time before your appointment, browsing the prices on airline tickets is an excellent way to pass the time.

Other useful apps include the ones that let you track, say, your Delta flight status so you know when to leave home for the airport or let you organize notes on your smartphone so you can easily find the one where you jotted down the location of your car at the Park and Fly Detroit lot. But these are the utilitarian ones that aren't nearly as fun to play with.

Every platform seems to have a decent selection of apps you can use when you're actually visiting a place - whether you're looking for a phrase book so you don't order calves' brains without knowing it, or an offline map so you don't have to worry about unfolding and refolding a paper map that brands you as a tourist, or a simple guide so you don't have to carry a heavy guidebook with you. Some apps do require a data or wireless connection to work, but many can be used entirely offline (look for that in the description) so you can use them on your smartphones without racking up big roaming charges or accidentally seeing a bunch of work emails when you're on vacation.

And of course, if you really want to unplug, the old methods for doing each of these things still work perfectly well. There are fantastic paper guidebooks, phrase books, and maps, and the phone in your hotel room makes an excellent tool for checking things like flight status. If you can make your smartphone work for you, however, it can be a handy travel device.

BootsnAll Traveler Connect Facebook App

Among our favorite topics at BootsnAll HQ are things like traveling the world, tales of hostels that could rightfully be categorized as horror stories, and weird foods we've eaten. But we almost always come back to the topic that was the main reason behind the founding of the company to begin with - connecting with people on the road. Which is why we're particularly happy to announce that we've created a BootsnAll Facebook app designed to help you do just that.

BootsnAll Traveler Connect allows you to see people who are locals in the places you'll be visiting so you can ask for travel tips (and maybe even meet up for coffee), and it also allows you see other people who are traveling to the same destinations you are so you can potentially coordinate travel plans (and maybe even meet up for coffee). What makes this app special is that you can connect with people you don't already know - unlike the usual Facebook system where you only connect with people you know (or once knew), BootsnAll Traveler Connect helps you find people with similar interests in order to share resources or - obviously I'm on a coffee kick - meet up for coffee.

You don't have to "friend" the people you meet through BootsnAll Traveler Connect if you'd rather keep your Facebook profile on the private side of things, but that doesn't prevent you from connecting with them through the app itself. And whether you're seeking tips on budget travel to the city they live in or hoping to find a fellow traveler to share a taxi to the airport to save money, we think it's an excellent tool to have in your arsenal.

iPhone as RTW Travel Tool

Once upon a time, anyone setting off on a long trip - whether it was to explore new lands or to take an educational "Grand Tour" of Europe - had limited options when it came to the tools they could bring along to make their travels easier. Sure, the explorers had "gadgets," but they were often cumbersome (at least by today's standards) and inaccurate, and they certainly weren't widely available to assist the average person in their travels.

My, how times have changed.

Today, anyone embarking on a round the world trip has an array of tools at their disposal - from guides to gadgets to gear - that can help them travel better. They're not all tech-related, but you also don't have to be a serious tech geek to find some of the most popular travel gadgets useful. In particular, one of the things many people are finding extremely useful in everyday life - and in travel by extension - is the iPhone.

With an iPhone, you can carry several travel tools in one small device, which is a huge benefit if you're trying to limit the amount of stuff you're packing around with you. Heck, I remember being so excited I could bring a few cassette tapes and my old walkman with me when I studied abroad in college - despite the fact that the cassettes took up valuable space in my suitcase. Just thinking of the iPhone as a way to carry a huge music library with you is great - but of course it's so much more than that.

Those iPhone apps commercials professing that "there's an app for that" might be annoying, but they're really true - it's astounding the number and variety of apps available in the iTunes app store, with more being added every day. For people who are taking off on a long trip (or who just travel often in general), these iPhone apps for RTW travel are really handy - especially since some of them have several travel tools within one or two apps, which saves space on your iPhone for other stuff.

Oh, and before you leave on your trip with your iPhone, don't forget to protect your gadget investment - it doesn't matter how useful your iPhone apps are if the iPhone breaks and you can't access anything. So be sure to get a protective iPhone case before your trip.

MAC support from Friends

I am pretty sure I have a few mates that read this that are avid MAC users.  I have a few questions for my 12" ibook.

1) When I click on a url inside of my mail program (Thunderbird) - it opens up Safari (a browser that I do not use) - I would like it to default to Firefox - how?

2) When I click on a mailto: linkin firefox - it defaults to Apple's mail program - I would like it to goto Thunderbird - how?

Any help would be appreciated. :)

Export my Yahoo into OPML?

Kevin Burton recently launched tailrank - I want todo what he suggested on this page.  I have gone to my yahoo page and been fiddling around - but do not see any way to export into OPML so I can upload into tailrank...  How?

Ning: Application Development

I signed up for there developer account early this morning and have not heard anything back yet.  Looking forward to trying it out.  Here's Dave Winer's thoughts on it.

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12 inch iBook

I bought a 12-inch Apple iBook last week.  Carrying my 8 pound laptop has gotten old and I don't want to do it on my upcoming trip.  I have gone overseas with my 8 pounder a 1/2 dozen times and don't want to lug it again.  So far...the user interface/user experience of this little bugger is excellent so far.  We'll see if I still like it after a month of using it on the road.