Traveling With Technology

Considering how we birders like to “get away from it all’ and head out into the bush looking for birds, we sure do use a lot of technology!

PREPARATION

Do your homework and find out what kind of powerpoints are at your destination and make sure you have the right ones.  Nothing worse than wasting time chasing around electronic stores looking for adaptors!

HAVE ENOUGH OUTLETS TO GO AROUND

Odds are that you will have several items that need charging – laptop/tablet, cameras, phones so it’s best to have one multi-outlet charger to accommodate them all.  Then you only need one adaptor for the destination.  Newer models also have USB outlets.

KEEP EVERYTHING TOPPED UP

Many eco-lodges don’t have electricity, they may have a generator that only runs at certain times.  If you have transit points in city hotels, make sure you top up all your batteries before heading out into the bush.

SMARTPHONE APPS

Download and update any travel apps you have as internet may be spotty in certain locations.  Here’s a few that I use:

Tripadvisor – For check up on hotel reviews and posting questions in the forums.  I only pay attention to reviews by people who have several reviews at least in different destinations.

Google Translate – Many birding guides don’t speak English or if they do, they charge double that a local guide would charge.  I’m usually happy with a local guide as long as he knows the birds.  I use Google Translate quite a bit while booking guides and lodges and sometimes on the road.  The latest version translates and speaks the translations!

Skype – Make sure you have Skype installed on your laptop/tablet and smartphone and have the toll free numbers of all the airlines you use loaded.  If anything goes wrong, all you need is wifi and you can contact your airline free of charge from anywhere in the world.

Airline & Hotel Apps – Sign up for notifications so you know when a flight is delayed or they change the gate.  Hotel apps can show you maps and other local facilities near the hotel and you sometimes get a bonus if you use an app to book a hotel.

Weather Apps – I always check the weather daily for my current destination and the next one so I can be forewarned of any nasty weather that impacts on birding.

Travel Planning Technology Of The Future – Does It Go Too Far?

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How many times have you wished the travel planning experience could be easier?  Well be careful what you wish for!  If Skyscanner’s glimpse into the future is any indication, there will be virtual reality devices that know WAY too much about you from your social media networks and plan your trip for you!  And people think Facebook is  a privacy risk!

You could be sitting around home hooked up to a device that uses your past preferences to plan your next trip and book it for you.  Before you decide that’s an awesome thing, consider how much fun it is to do the planning on your own.  Do you really want to have a trip to Brazil booked in the blink of an eye?  Isn’t planning half the fun?

It’s a challenge to put it all together.  Find the flights, figure out what kind of miles you need, how to get the miles and book the flights.  Then you have to choose accommodation and spend hours on Trip Advisor reading reviews to make sure you get the best place for your requirements.  Eco-tourists and birders spend even more time reading trip reports to figure out where the birds are best seen and what time of year to go there.  It’s a LOT of work……………but so rewarding!  I always have a tremendous feeling of satisfaction when I put it all together and get it right.  Occasionally I get it wrong, but I put so much research into my trips I’d say 99% of the time I do get it right.

What do you think?  Do you enjoy the planning as much as the actual trip?  Or do you want a machine to do the planning for you?  Would virtual reality spoil the adventure for you?  For birders, where do you draw the line?  For me, a David Attenborough documentary whets my appetite to be there in person.  Would Google Glass be going too far and negate the reason to travel?  Read through Skyscanner’s website and tell me what you think!