10 Tech Travel Items to Keep You Grounded
Travel interrupts our naturally scheduled programming and is an easy scapegoat for not maintaining a healthy lifestyle as well as being out of touch with our friends, families and jobs. Gear up for 2014 with these 10 apps and gadgets to help make your travel experiences exciting and productive. We talk with Melissa Thompson, frequent coast-to-coast traveller and CEO of online counseling service - TalkSession, about her top tech ways of make traveling easier for 2014.
Stock up on Travel Tech
"For the first time in two years I took a vacation...it was to Patagonia and I didn't know what to expect. So I wanted to stock up on the latest tech to make my trip as productive as possible"
Here's the List
1) Forgo frenzy: Tile your passport
In a digital age where passports remain a critical analog exception to our paperless world. Despite the finger scanners and facial recognition currently in use, travelers cannot travel internationally without that antiquated booklet. Avoid the last minute, “I can’t find my passport!” craze with a DIY digitization. Tile, one of Kickstarter’s hottest projects of the year, is a matchbook-sized, thin, white plastic square. This self-adhesive device, equipped with GPS, allows any item to be tracked using the owners smartphone app and Tile’s low-Bluetooth technology. Can’t find your passport? If prepared and equipped with a Tile affixed to the passport’s back or case, the owner can located the passport on a map and remotely send the device a signal to emit a sound, hopefully putting an end to the search-and-rescue. This simple device is the “find my iPhone,” for all physical items. Tile, which does not require battery changes or charging, can be pre-ordered for summer 2014 delivery. Tile for travel could keep your passport and checked-luggage always in your pocket.
2) Rove hands-free, with your automated travel diary
This free app is an automated timeline, which tracks users’ movements through GPS, estimates the method of travel, and inserts pictures, maps and locations into a timeline. The result is a beautiful visual travel journal– no inputs required. Next time relatives ask to hear all about the trip? Just “Share” from the app and Rove will email a link to the trip’s timeline- allowing the traveler to enjoy the moment and not spend time recording it. Want to keep Rove personal? The app is 100% private unless users choose to share.
3) Caught with your batteries down? Bring extra juice
There are many options on the market to pack power for on-the-go charging. Dark Reservoir’s sleekly designed device is on the higher end of the price rage, but the pocket-sized device will provide up to five charges for an iPhone, 1.5 charges for an iPad mini and will charge anything with a micro-USB charger. Innergie has a wide range of prices and products for back-up batteries, including laptops.
4) Hydrated and healthy, TSA approved: LifeStraw by Vestergaard
Described as “one of the ten things that will change the way we live” by Forbes, take this (empty!) water bottle on the road, mitigate the risk of illness, and turn local tap water anywhere in the world into safe drinking water. The filtration technology integrated into the LifeStraw Go water bottle reduces the risk of bacterial and parasitic water-borne disease transmission. Through advanced filtration technology, water is forced through fibers that only allow the clean water to pass through, keeping contaminants away from consumption.
5) Viber App + (friend with) Viber App = Free Calls (Seriously)The Viber app allows users to make free phone calls, video calls or send text messages, over 4G or WiFi, anywhere in the world, free of charge (as long as both users are connecting through the Viber application). The app is available on all mobile devices and with 200 million active global users, has become one of the largest disruptors in the online global communication space.
6) Map of Maladies: Sickweather App, the “Doppler radar for sickness”
Sickweather’s iOS app uses social status updates, natural language processing, and location data to map zones of illness in categories. Avoid getting sick on the road through the app’s push notifications and maps highlighting zones with outbreaks of specific illnesses. Sickness maps can be filtered to ones important to a specific user and included in “illness alerts” or can be mapped by disease category, density, or proximity.
7) Sounds over Sedatives: SleepPhones, the “pajamas for your ears”
Developed by a family physician to ease sleep without medication, SleepPhones come with free apps offering sounds of nature or white noise, which should upgrade your flight at a fraction of the cost. These cozy fleece accessories come with built in headphones, or an option for a wireless Bluetooth-enabled band.
8) Don’t get lost in translation: Word Lens for Google Glass
Word Lens, a popular smartphone app, has come to Glass, providing frictionless translation of written words. View a sign or a menu through Glass in any language, and the app renders the words in real-time, in English translation, through the Glass lens. This technology may be the end of the translation dictionary and as a bonus it uses Glass’ local storage, eliminating the need for data connectivity. As Google Glass devices proliferate, keep Word Lens on your radar.
9) Overcome power struggles: iBattz Mojo Slim Universal Travel Adapter
For international travel bring a power adapter that doesn't require a bag full of interchangeable accessories. iBattz’s Mojo Slim Universal Travel Adapter is less than an inch thick, covers 150 countries, and has both a USB input as well as a standard plug input for dual device charging.
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