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Apps and Books
Google Trips: The App that Makes Traveling Easier
Discover Google Trips, the app that makes organizing any escapade child’s play.
4 Apps for Low Cost Traveling
The five free essential apps for low cost traveling. These are the most useful apps you can have on your smartphone if you are looking for cheap holidays without having to forego anything at all.
5 Travel Apps that Will Make Your Stay Easier
These days, we are used to getting a number of travel apps on our Smartphones before traveling, for access to firsthand information about the city we are going to. It’s an easy way to travel; we feel more confident to move around, we know where to go, what sites to visit and where to eat when we find ourselves in a new place.
Literary Routes around the World
Literary Routes around the World: Miguel de Cervantes, William Shakespeare, Millennium (Stieg Larsson).
World Book Day – Writers We Have Travelled With
World Book Day is upon us, and we’d like to celebrate this literary event by revisiting some of the writers whose works have taken us on journeys to extraordinary worlds. They are no longer with us but their literary legacy still takes us to dream places, and we wanted to pay them tribute by exploring their most adventurous side, which served, no doubt, as source of inspiration for some of their most popular works. Buckle up because we are off on a journey with some of the main writers in world literature: Miguel De Cervantes is the textbook case of the term traveler. The maximum exponent of Spanish literature not only roamed about carefree in his masterpiece Don Quixote, but the latter is also the depiction of a life spent journeying through the Iberian Peninsula and the Mediterranean. In 1569, the young Cervantes became an outlaw and fled to Rome, only to continue his Italian wanderings through cities like Milan, Florence, Venice, or Palermo. Shortly thereafter he boarded the galley Marquesa under the direct command of Juan de Austria, and fought in the battle of Lepanto, where an arquebus blast severely injured his left hand. This event earned him the nickname by which he is popularly known in Spain, El manco de Lepanto (the one-handed man of Lepanto). After some time recovering from his war wounds in Messina, he returned to his warring exploits to defend Tunisia, Lisbon, Toledo, La Mancha, and Andalusia until death found him in Madrid in 1616, after a lengthy pilgrimage. Although it has never been verified whether William Shakespeare actually traveled to Italy, it...
A Charles Dickens Tour and “A Christmas Carol”
Christmas is about being a child again. Feeling like a child full of wonder with a head full of hopes and dreams. It was precisely for such children that Charles Dickens wrote “A Christmas Carol” in 1843. You’re more than likely already familiar with the book. Are you a fan of Dickens? Want to learn more about him? He was so successful that after his death, many different versions of his most famous work created. To step back into his time period, the first thing we need to do is travel to London.
App of the Month: TravelSafe Pro
The application that I’m recommending this month is TravelSafe Pro, which is like an international off-line database that’s perfect to bring along in any bag. And when you need to travel abroad at the last minute and something unexpected happens, you’ll see how useful it can be when you need to quickly access the phone numbers and addresses of the embassy and consulates in any country or the numbers for police, the fire station, and the emergency hotline. You never know what might happen. If there’s an app that can really help you out in a time of need, and perhaps even save lives, it’s TravelSafe Pro. A trip begins way before the actual day of departure. Whatever your destination, you will have to get ready for it. Not only the route and accommodations need your attention, you also need to prepare for what to do in an emergency. Traveling abroad with TravelSafe Pro guarantees you’ll have the right information. Of course, as you know, the information offered by this application can be found on the internet thanks to Google, but the good thing about this app is that you don’t need an internet connection. The information will already been downloaded on your phone. You only need to select the country of origin and your destination. TravelSafe Pro also gives users the option to call directly from the app, so that you don’t need to waste a single minute in an emergency situation. There are definitely times when one needs to act quickly, and having an emergency while traveling abroad can be especially stressful. Imagine you trip while hiking...
Hop! the Suitcase That Follows You
Some inventions are truly innovative and catch us by surprise. Hop! is one of them. Invented by a Spaniard, it may well be the best invention to come out of this country since the mop was invented. And Hop! could be a very useful tool for travelers who suffer back problems, since it’s a suitcase that you don’t have to carry or drag behind you. You don’t even have to touch it to take along with you. How does it move? It’s easy. You just need a smartphone and then activate your Bluetooth. The Hop! suitcase has three sensors at each corner to receive and triangulate the signal coming from your smartphone, and cause it to automatically follow you. So if you have your smartphone in your pocket, the suitcase will “magically” follow you. The integrated microprocessor locates the signal and in this way follows your exact movements from the spot you just passed. The suitcase moves on small wheels that enable it to move lightly, practically hopping, which is how it got its name. And the question that everyone is asking: What happens if the suitcase is lost or if someone takes it? If the smartphone loses its signal with the suitcase it automatically starts to vibrate, so the user will know exactly when the signal has been lost and the suitcase is not following him or her. The suitcase locks itself and stops moving when the signal is lost, which is especially useful if you are walking through a large crowd. And the other question: What if I’m traveling with more than one suitcase? Do you need...
App of the Month: Groopic
Of all the apps that we have tested over the last few months, today’s is definitely one of the best and maybe even the best. Want to know why it’s no longer necessary to be left out of photos? Keep reading. How many times have you wanted to take a photograph while traveling but didn’t simply because someone has to take the photo? You come home and ask yourself, “But where are you in the pictures?” One option that many people employ is the “selfie,” a photo that you take yourself with your face in the foreground taking up most of the picture and leaving little room to see what´s behind you, which is what you actually want to see. The selfie has become very popular lately, not only due to Ellen DeGeneres at the Oscars but thanks to sites like Instagram. But let’s be honest, a selfie is not usually a good picture. However, let’s get back to our topic at hand. Groopic is a fantastic app for the following reason. If you´re with somebody and you want to have a picture of the both of you without resorting to taking a selfie or asking someone to do it for you (and without the embarrassment of a language barrier or fear that someone might run off with your camera or mobile), you can now use Groopic to photograph everyone. How? It’s easy. One of you shoots the other person or persons and then the photographer trades places with someone to position him or herself next to the others (not in the same spot). Then, Groopic superimposes the two...
