Geeky Traveller

If you look up ‘3-star business hotel’ in the dictionary, you’ll find a photo of the drab but functional Grand Canal Hotel. It’s on the outskirts of downtown Dublin, and the border of ritzy Ballsbridge.

It’s profoundly ordinary.

It has no pool, no gym, a characterless restaurant and friendly, eastern European front desk staff. And of course, they’ve got a pub. In this case, Kitty O’Shea’s (one of seven around the world).

As for geek appeal, it’s average. They’ve got wifi, but only on the 5th floor. This is a fact they don’t advertise, so be sure to request a room there. They use BT Openzone for the wifi. It’s 15 euros a day, which is pretty average for Europe. However, if you’re there for a while, you can get a month for 60 euros. I was there for seven nights, so that’s like 8.5 euros a day–deal!

There’s no wireful access, excepting some dodgy Web access through the TV.  

Technorati Tags: hotel review, grand canal, dublin, ireland, accomodation, btopenzone

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Are there lots of iPod-enabled clothes? Before the Kenpo jacket, the only one I was aware of was the Burton snowboarding jackets. This comes to me via Popgadget, who has some sound thinking on these badboys:

However, what I’m having trouble figuring out is how this is vastly easier than reaching into your pocket and controlling the click wheel. In fact, the jacket controller involves both your hands since you need to control the buttons with the arm that isn’t wearing the remote control sleeve.

 Makes a good point there.

Technorati Tags: ipod, clothing, jacket, kenpo

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Fumio writes with this question:

I would like to know the practicality of PDA-GPS combo for walking tour, not for driving. For example, walking around Venice or Buenos Aires (European cities and South America). Where can I get such info?

That’s a darned fine question. I’ve blogged about a few MP3 walking tours over on my personal site (and I recently saw some on Audible), but nothing that combines GPS data. Good idea. Somebody get on that, eh?

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Via eHub, I came across a couple of nifty Google Maps mashups:

• Public Loos – As you might expect, this site provides you with a handy guide to all the public washrooms in San Francisco. Ick. Presumably they loo-enable the rest of the world eventually.
• TripMojo – Search for a hotel name, and view it in a Google map. Here, for example, all a bunch of hotels which include the term ‘Pan Pacific’.

Both of these sites remind me of a common complaint I have about Google Maps hacks. They tend not to implement the “Link to this page” feature, which enables you to grab a hyperlink for an exact map view, including zoom level, map style, and so on.

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The blogless Frommers recently posted a list of their favourite travel blogs. Here’s the list in short form:

• Gridskipper
• Travel Post
• TravelBlog
• National Parks Traveller
• BootsnAll
• Gadling
• Rolf Pott’s Vagabonding
• Jen Leo’s Written Road
• OneBag
• Biddingfortravel.com

Happily, we got mentioned in a footnote to Gadling’s entry.

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Locals may have spotted an article on Luxury Link in the Vancouver Sun this weekend, but it’s probably news to the rest of you. It’s essentially eBay for high-end travellers:

Founded in 1997, Luxury Link is the world’s premier online luxury travel resource. Showcasing more than 1000 extraordinary hotels and resorts, cruises, tours and villas in more than 60 countries, Luxury Link provides unparalleled access to exclusive offers and insider tips for the sophisticated traveler.

I wouldn’t normally make a big thing out of a site like this, but there are some sweet deals to be had. To start locally, consider this auction for a two-bedroom cottage at the swankalicious Poet’s Cove on Pender Island. Four nights accomodation, breakfast every day, one dinner for four, $75 spa credit for each guest–an apparent retail value of US $2151.00. The auction closes tomorrow afternoon, and the high bid is currently at US $1075.00. I know CAN $300/night ain’t cheap, but divide that among four people, and that’s excellent value for luxury accomodation.

Or, if you’re feeling flush and altruistic, pay US $13,000 and rent a luxurious 6-bedroom oceanfront home for a week in Costa Rica. Make 14 of your friends happy.

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Lee Fever and his wife Sachi are going on a year-long, five continent trip (the bastards). They’re going to blog the whole trip, live from the world using a Palm Treo 650. With the help of the Raincity Studios hoodlums, he’s made a super-cool site to track their trip: The World Is Not Flat.

Right now, he’s soliciting travel advice and experience from people who have visited the countries they’re going to. For example, I posted about going on safari in South Africa. You can also check out their dispatches via this nifty Google Map hack.

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