Amplified Journeys is an interesting site which will create a personal playlist based on some basic information. Simply go to their site and enter in your departure point and your arrival point on your road trip. Select the genre you prefer for your travels, and you’ll receive a special, tailor-made playlist.

It’s an entertaining way to spend your drive and gives you the chance to hear some new-to-you music.wr

Source: Chip Chick // Photo: Flickr

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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 cool, at least for a geek like me. Growing up, I lamented the fact that my family’s station wagon was nowhere near as awesome as K.I.T.T. was and now, with the Mio Knight Rider GPS, my current car could be almost as great!

Pick one up at Radio Shack for $269.99.

(Thanks to Rita for the tip // photo: RadioShack.com)

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What about what you’re leaving behind at home though? After all, if you’re vacationing in Greece, you’re not likely to be interested in the phone calls you’re missing at home. Voice mail will take care of that for you, but what it you’d like to personalize it a little further than the basic, “Hi, you’ve reached Sherry” message?

YouMail lets you compartmentalize your voice mail, depending on who is calling you. First you use Yahoo, Google, Outlook, or whatever else you use to import your contacts with their phone numbers into a contact library. At that point you can assign pre-recorded messages to each individual. You can have Darth Vader inform your Star Wars fan friends that you’re not available because you’ve joined the dark side. Get the Beatles to sing about your inability to take calls to your mom. Use a straight-laced “I’m away for two weeks” message for your boss just in case the office calls.

You can also use a microphone to create your own custom messages if you can’t find what you’re looking for – but there are thousands of clips, so you should be able to find something to suit every mood and every caller.

I’ve played around with sound clips in the past, but being able to assign them to specific is really cool. I know that more than once my father got confused and hung up, not understanding what was going on when I used a movie clip for my voice mail. By using YouMail, you can avoid that problem while still having a little bit of fun – and you can vacation happily without worrying about missing any important messages while you’re gone!

(source: Thrillist.com // photo: sxc.hu)

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Students from the Berlin University of the Arts created a roadtrip game that goes way beyond backseat bingo. The game, called Carcade! takes the world around you and translates it into a computer game that you play right in the car.

(Passengers only, naturally. Drivers will have to wait until someone else takes over the wheel if they want to play too!)

The game uses a webcam that attaches to the passenger side mirror, facing forward, while being plugged in to a laptop inside the car. Using camera tracking software on the laptop, the webcam takes the scenery of the road and passes it into the game.

From there, the player inside the car plays a game involving a spaceship that must dodge obstacles that are created from the environment outside the car. The faster the driver goes, the more challenging the game becomes, so clearly street driving would be the novice level, while highway driving would be for the experts.

Check out this video to see the whole thing:

Obviously, we’re not talking stunning graphics like you’ll see in top-notch games, but this isn’t about graphics – this is about a unique game that takes real life and turns it into an arcade. If that doesn’t make your long road trip a little less boring, I don’t know what will!

Would you try Carcade! out if it becomes available? I know I would!

(source: Engadget via psfk.com

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Isn’t that amazing? It’s hard to believe there’s so much movement in one lone day up there in the skies!

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It’s called Mail Goggles, and it’s technically meant to discourage those late-night drunken emails where you profess the love you still have for your ex, only to wake up in the morning, completely mortified.

But you know, it could be useful during travel too. If you’re taking your laptop with you while you vacation, you might find yourself sitting around late one night on the other side of the country with a few too many beers zipping through your brain, and all of a sudden the best idea in the world is to quit your job. You don’t want to send your boss an email at 3 am saying that you hate your job, your office, and ever person you share office space with, do you? Because once the hangover subsides, you might realize that you made a bit of a mistake.

Let Mail Goggles stop you from making a really bad move!

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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 need to do it? Well, no real reason. But it could bring about some amusement while you’re driving around, following directions in a strange city. Instead of listening to the built-in default computerized voice, you could get directions to a tourist attraction from actors, cartoon characters, and singers.

Imagine being directed to the Smithsonian by Stewie Griffin. Let Arnold Schwarzenneger guide you to the CN tower. Or ask Yoda where the heck your hotel is located.

Sure, it’s a little bit silly (“your hotel, on the left it is!”), but travel doesn’t always have to be serious business. Sometimes you want it to be light and fun, and Pig Tones will definitely help you get that while still getting you wherever you need to be.

(source: Red Ferret // photo: flickr)

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Not every airline’s movie choices are everyone’s cup of tea. If you’re a bit nervous about flying, a movie might not even offer enough distraction. If you’re looking for something a bit more interactive to pass the time on your flight, Virgin America has their Red inflight system to entertain you.

Red allows you to play a variety of fun brain games – against other passengers. For instance, you can play a word scramble game with someone ten rows up on the other side of the plane. You can also instant message or full on chat with the others.

If community games aren’t your thing, you can also go back to the standard movie, by choosing from 25 on-demand titles, watch live TV, play solo video games, poke around on Google maps, listen to music, and more.

It’s always fun to hear about tech features airlines are offering for their passengers. Have you tried out Red on Virgin America? Or have you found something equally entertaining on another airline?

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When I signed up, I set a profile for myself saying that I tend to look more for budget travel than luxury (that’s an understatement!), I like to be a little off the beaten track, I love multi-lingual more than just English-speaking, and that I seek out both relaxed/fun travel over sporty/adventure and that I require family-friendly trips.

Then I added all the places I could think of, off the top of my head, that I have visited and rated them.

Now, I can go ahead and find recommendations on future travel based on my needs and what I have liked in the past. It could still be a bit of a crap-shoot for me, seeing as how most of the travels I did were prior to having kids when kid-friendly wasn’t a factor for me, but interesting nonetheless.

Once you complete everything, it gives you a map with a bunch of suggested destinations. It’s curious to me, because there are a lot of places that I would actually love to see, and they’re not listed – for instance, there’s nothing in Africa at all, and surely there’s got to be something somewhere in an entire continent that would work for a family. On the other hand, I did set my dream destination as Prague, and it recommended the Charles Bridge in Prague, a place I would definitely love to see.

I think it’s the kind of site that will require some playing and poking around. It’s definitely not an immediate travel site, but if you’re just daydreaming about your next vacation and want some ideas, TripSay is a good place to start!

(photo: Tripsay.com)

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This kind of thing is a total lifesaver for someone like me. With two kids in our family and our most common method of traveling being via the car, anything that can make the drive a little less stressful is key. If the little one is tired she’ll fall asleep, and both kids enjoy listening to music, but all kids have their limits and that’s when you get the whining and fussing in the back seat.

If they have their own steering wheel to play with, they’ll ideally feel like a big kid, driving along with you. Meanwhile, it has lights and interactive sounds to keep things interesting a bit longer.

Yesterday our family went to a local tourist spot (the Montreal Biodome, well worth the visit if you’re in the area, I try to go at least once a year) and just that short half hour drive involved an awful lot of “are we almost there?” I’m going to check out our toy store to see if I can find this or something similar before our next road trip!

You can get it for $29.95 and save your sanity on your next family road trip.

(source // product photo)

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