Geeky Traveller

I’m the queen of falling asleep when I travel. I can sleep pretty much anywhere – in a car, a train, a plane, a bus, the subway. If it’s moving, I’m quite possibly slumbering unless I’m actively engaged in a conversation or a book. I may or may not be mildly narcoleptic!
Have you ever fallen asleep and missed your destination though? If you’re traveling by train or bus, and you’re particularly exhausted, you might end up snoozing right through your stop and wake up 50 miles away from where you meant to be. …read more

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At first glance, the Mio Knight Rider GPS device seems like it’s not particularly different from any other GPS system. It gives you your usual CPS maps of Canada and the United States, with speech capabilities and step by step directions.
However, what sets it apart from your average GPS device is that the voice for the system is done by William Daniels who voiced K.I.T.T. on the hit show Knight Rider between 1982 and 1986.
Will it work any better than any other device? No, there’s nothing else mind-blowing about it. But it sure makes it …read more

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Have you ever traveled on the fly? It’s a great way to take a road trip – just get in your car, pick a direction, and see where you end up and what you can see on the way. Now hotels.com offers an iPhone application that will allow you to book a hotel room while you’re on the road. Thanks to a GPS system, you can track down the hotels that are in your current area. Once you’ve chosen the hotel that best suits your needs, you can then book yourself a room right from …read more

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Sometimes I like to feature products and services that are really useful or important to travelers who wish to maintain their geek culture status – Google map mash-ups, tools for locating your luggage, those types of things.
On the other hand, sometimes it’s fun to have something, not because you really need it and not even because it’s actually useful for travel purposes. Sometimes you just want something because why the heck not?

Take Pig Tones, for instance. Pig Tones, or Politically Incorrect GPS offers you the chance to download different voices for your Garmin or TOMTOM GPS.
Why would you …read more

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Did you ever go hitchhiking? I never did; I was scared off between dire warnings from my parents and that movie, The Hitcher. However, once upon a time, many people made their way from Point A to Point B by tossing a duffel bag over their shoulder, standing on the side of the road, and sticking a thumb out into traffic.
Now someone has come up with a concept device called the iHitch. It would combine a cell phone, GPS device, and a payment method (similar, I would assume, to PayPal where you can pay a token fee …read more

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Here’s yet another example of brilliance. For €79.00 you can buy a McGuider SD card that you can put into your cell phone. Just like anything with auto-play on your computer, the card will then automatically install the software which will access your GPS chip.
After that, voila! Your cell phone is no longer just a phone, it’s a GPS device too. It uses TeleAtlas maps and is compatible at this time with Symbian and Windows Mobile handsets.
That’s a great idea. It’s not really any more expensive than a separate GPS device would be …read more

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I read something interesting today. Back in 1989, when they took the Wall down between East and West Germany, officials in Berlin were so eager to remove all traces of what was a terrible reminder to the people who lived through it that they cleared it completely within months. What they didn’t anticipate was that for the next 20 years, millions of tourists would arrive, unable to locate where the Wall was. Apparently, one of the most common questions a tourist asks in Berlin is, “where is the Wall?”
Eventually they realized that they may have made a …read more

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Due to a desire to always offer up full disclosure, I confess I’m a Canon girl. I’ve used Kodak and HP and Fujifilm (twice even) but now that I have a dSLR, I’m a huge Canon fan. I’ve never even used a Nikon camera. However, I wouldn’t be opposed to using Nikon if someone wanted to give me one!

The Nikon D300 is interesting though. The D300 is not only an excellent dSLR camera with lightning-fast reaction time (and up to 100 frames in burst mode at 8 frames per second!), it has a very nice little …read more

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Remember when I wrote about the rather amusing PDA service (pun only partially intended) that allows you to find strip clubs while traveling? If you like the idea, but not the “entertainment”, here’s something a little more tame along those same lines from Alastair Sawday’s.
It only works in England and Wales, but there’s likely a similar service in other countries as well. It uses your GPS system, cellphone, or PDA to send you the location of various pubs and inns in whichever area you happen to be in. No matter where you are in England, if you …read more

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Okay, this is a gadget/service that will do absolutely nothing for me and it’s in somewhat questionable taste, but your mileage may vary depending on your, uh, interests.
If you’re using a GPS device to find your way around and your idea of entertainment involves less in the way of fine dining and Broadway shows and more in the way of naked girls dancing on poles, you may find yourself wanting to try out Nudar. The site allows you to use your GPS (check the site for compatibility) to find adult clubs across the US. You can set it …read more

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