You Travel? iTravel: Apps that guide the modern tourist

When I travel I am often times a sightseer as well, but recently there have been other sights catching my eye aside from beautiful landscapes, and energetic cities. I have been fully aware that countless other tourists are tied to their iPod, Blackberry, or other smartphone.

At first this really annoyed me. Not being an owner of any such technology, I couldn’t understand why on Earth these people more absorbed by their gadgets (let’s just call them all, collectively, “gadgets”) than the destination they are at. Why weren’t their eyes lifting from the screens to see where they were?!

It turns out that they probably weren’t being as ignorant as I had impulsively thought. Each one of their gadgets offer countless apps that are designed to help globetrotters, adventure seekers, and even casual or business travelers through every step of their trip.

For instance: I am the worst navigator. If I were to have bought the Google Maps app, I would never have to give bad directions or wander aimlessly lost again! Paper maps may be helpful, but when you are going the wrong way, it is nice to have something tell you to “turn around!”


Sascha Sagen works as an analyst for PCmag, and spends his time reviewing new technologies and the apps they use. He likes to use the TripIt app to help manage his flights and reservations. This app keeps track of his confirmations and itineraries.

There is another app Sagen uses, TripCase, that helps to manage his entire itinerary and notify him of gate changes and flight delays. In his review of travel apps, he recommends using both TripIt and TripCase together, just to keep things from getting to overwhelming.

Once manage to get a location, there are apps to help travelers even more. The most basic being those that keep tabs on the weather. Weather channel apps, WeatherBug, or Accuweather, all know the local weather and can provide forecasts.

Yelp, Foursquare, and Zagat apps help travelers find places to go. While Zagat is famous for its restaurant reviews, Yelp and Foursquare review restaurants as well as local businesses. An added bonus to these apps is that the reviews are from ordinary people with no affiliation to the businesses.

Some businesses even offer special deals for Foursquare members.




A few apps that a ran across when shopping for apps that I have no devices for made me laugh at first glance. They are completely practical, but I commend those who thought to create them:

TippingTips promotes itself as “Tip like a local, all around the globe.” This app takes into account that not all cultures tip the same and will help users act appropriately.

Mo’s Nose app locates areas around any US town that is dog friendly, including restaurants.

PrimoSpot helps drivers find open and affordable parking in cities. They also help find bike racks.

SitOrSquat. This seemed ridiculous to me at first, but this app helps users find public bathrooms and almost any city. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense as a useful app. If you are not familiar with an area, how are you supposed to know where bathrooms are?!


Even if you are like me, without an iPod or smartphone, you can text a question to 46645 and get the top listings from Google.

This only scratches the surface of apps that have been designed to help travelers have better experiences. There are hosts of other apps to help translate or provide first aid in an emergency.

No matter what travelers are searching for to make their trips more enjoyable (Hotels, better food, or just a place to relieve their bladders), technology has been keeping up to try and make that happen.

Agencies of the Internet: Where to Buy Tickets

It’s hard to think about new technologies that have been impacting the travel and tourism agencies without giving notice to the slowly diminishing trade of travel agents. The once vital planners of vacations are being replaced by online travel agencies. These relatively new sites offer low air-fares, the ability to easily compare multiple travel options, and book as a package (the package includes combinations of air fare, cruise tickets, or rental cars).

There are numerous of these sites floating around in the internet. Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline, and Hotwire only scratch the big names. These sites have their benefits, most notably they save travelers money on fares, but there are instances where these companies do not have the benefit of the consumer in mind.

Recently, there has been a huge debacle between American Airlines and online booking agencies.

Writer Christopher Elliott describes it as, “airlines and travel agencies are squabbling over how they show you ticket prices. Agencies want to display it their way; airlines want to show you the prices the way they want. Neither necessarily has your interests in mind.”

The bottom line is that American Airlines is no longer giving low-fares to Orbitz and Expedia is not going to accept American Airlines’ low-fares for posting. The same deals will be posted directly on American Airlines site, they way they want the fares displayed.

The necessity to check the individual sites might become more of a hassle if a traveler is comparing tickets, but the airlines hope to be eliminating the third party and either cut the price for travelers or pocket more of the profit.
This isn’t really new news. Consumers and companies both flocked to the online travel agents when they found that they could eliminate commission prices that had originally been devoted to behind the desk agents. Now looking to save even more, companies are taking on the responsibility of booking.

My family has always liked to travel. I remember a time, I was quite little then, when we booked all of our big vacations through AAA. We had a folder and the agents knew our names and ages. The agents knew our preferences. They knew when the Armstrong family walked in there was probably booking to Disney World in it for them. It was easy, and my dad would remember later as taking a vacation from planning a vacation.

After the introduction of online travel agents, my family started to selectively use AAA for our vacations and went ticket scavenging to get the best air-fare on our own.

Now, we are in charge of our own planning almost entirely. We buy attraction tickets and lodging directly from the resort’s website, and buy our tickets through Delta.
Delta even gives us rewards for booking through them. My family travels enough to skip the long TSA line at airport security and check in kiosks. American Airlines is hoping to cushion the change for customers by offering their AAdvantage flyers double the reward points to be used towards future flights.

The internet has brought us much advancement in the way that we approach vacation planning, and recent events will further impact these. As individual companies take control of their own marketing and sales, it is will hopefully pay (literally!!)for travelers to stay alert to changes in how the travel industry is working.