Tag: Travel »

Planning a vacation or day trip and want to learn some great historical facts along the way? Give HISTORY Here a try.

The app comes courtesy of the History Channel and offers an interactive guide to thousands of historic locations across the USA. Users have the option to choose any location they wish, or they can let the GPS functionality do its magic and give places of local interest.

It's possible to search for various historic points of interest for inspiration, as well as view everything as part of a zoomable map. Features like this should prove ideal when planning ahead.

Images for each place are included, along with an overview of the venue and any relevant details such as contact phone numbers. Even if you think you know an area well, you're bound to be surprised by something from this app.

HISTORY Here is out now and free to download.

Here's a reminder of just how great technology is: Worldictionary is the kind of translation tool that would have seemed mystical years ago.

All the user has to do is point their iPhone's camera at a word and Worldictionary defines and translates it. There's no need to type in words. An internet connection is required but otherwise, it's pretty seamless.

The app recognizes 22 languages, including Traditional Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish and Spanish. In each case, results promise to be instant and accurate. Live translation isn't the only option either, with it possible to take a photo for later reference, such as when an internet connection is available.

Google, Wikipedia and YouTube search functionality is available for definitions and it's always possible to check the translation history at a later date.

Worldictionary should prove to be a great assistant for regular travellers.

It's out now, priced at $3.99.

Already an incredibly useful app for regular travellers, WorldMate has just got even better, for iPhone users, with a re-designed hotel booking service.

The app now provides personalized hotel recommendations for trips, which is all hooked up to the global hotel inventory from Expedia. An instant search makes it a breeze to check out same-day reservations of nearby hotels, plus there are special deals for the U.S. and other international destinations.

Over 100,000 different hotels are included within the inventory with room prices displayed for each. It's even possible to set up WorldMate to remember your credit card details to checkout even faster, with support for 20 different local currencies.

Throughout this hotel booking experience, WorldMate tracks exactly where you are so all search results are relevant to your needs, making it easy to filter through the best fit.

The update for WorldMate is out now with the basic version available for free, and the Gold version available priced at $9.99.

Soho is one of the most fascinating areas of London with its wealth of landmarks and hedonistic history. It's often a place overlooked for tourists however, which is something Soho Stories aims to stop.

Coming from Britain's conservation organization, The National Trust, Soho Stories offers a fantastic audio tour of the area, narrated by veteran Soho entertainer Barry Cryer. Alongside that are stories from various 'Sohoites' such as Molly Parkin looking at artist Francis Bacon's drinking ways and Janet Street Porter's analysis of the Groucho club. A darker look at Soho comes from Frankie Fraser with the history of the rise of the gangster.

The app isn't quite for the family to listen to with some references to sex and violence, as well as strong language, but it provides a great piece of social history of an iconic area of London.

GPS functionality means that Soho Stories tracks the user's location and provides relevant stories, but it's possible to listen away from Soho and choosing pieces of audio individually.

For social historians and tourists alike, Soho Stories should prove a fascinating source of information.

Waze has been a fascinating example of the power of crowd sourcing since its inception in 2010. We've loved it ever since with its steady stream of updates keeping things fresh. Now comes one of the more ambitious updates.

Update 3.2 now provides Waze users with the means in which to keep track of real-time gas prices along their route, along with the ability to update prices themselves, where neccessary.

The new category search makes it simple to check things and at certain participating locations, it'll even be possible to receive exclusive in-app discounts on gasoline. Partnerships have already been arranged with Kum & Go, Mid-Atlantic Convenience Stores (Exxon and BP stations) and Vintners Distributers (Shell) locations.

One other major new feature is the addition of waypoints to coincide with the new categories, including gas stations, parking lots and car repair shops.

Waze has little competition given its free nature, but now there's all the more reason to check it out.

Waze is out now for both iPhone and iPad. It remains free.

Yahoo! might have lost its position as the most commonly used search engine, but it's bounced back in order to dominate the App Store, or at least that's the hope.

One such new app from the company is that of Yahoo! TimeTraveler. The app makes exploring 29 major cities much easier by creating simple to follow trip plans for each of them, all based according to how long the user has got and where they want to start and end the tour.

The cities catered for range from 19 major US cities including New York, San Francisco, Chicago, New Orleans and Dallas, as well as European destinations like Paris, Rome, London and Barcelona. Dubai and Christchurch are also catered for.

The app should keep most travellers happy and offers the potential for up to 10 hours of touring. An integrated map with routes and directions makes it easy to use, and it's possible to generate multiple different plans for a city.

If you're travelling this Summer, give it a shot. Yahoo! TimeTraveler is out now and it's free.

iOS devices have fast become an essential tool for regular travellers who need to be able to work while on the move. Such devices also come in handy when in need of a way to organize future trips. One newly updated app to help people along the way is WorldMate.

WorldMate does pretty much everything anyone could need when it comes to planning a trip. There's an itinerary manager which covers flights, hotels, hire cars and meetings. It's possible to search flight schedules, book hotels (on the iPhone version), search via Yelp, view maps and directions for all itinerary items and check out the local forecast. It's also possible to check out whether LinkedIn contacts are located nearby, ideal for conferences.

The app is free but regular users can opt to upgrade to WorldMate Gold which offers pushed flight alerts, real-time flight statuses integrated into the itinerary and the ability to sync the calendar.

To celebrate the new update, WorldMate Gold is available for $2.99 for a limited time and normally priced at $9.99.

The Travel Channel and Anthony Bourdain have just released a new iPad app meant to help travelers plan their trips. The app includes a ton a features and has a very high production value. Anyone traveling to one of the cities included in the app should definitely download it.

The main theme of the app is creating "layovers", which are itineraries of locations to visit. The app includes suggested layovers and users can create their own by selecting from the locations and restaurants in the app's database. The app will also estimate the amount of time it takes to visit a location and the amount of time it takes to travel from place to place. Currently, the cities in included in the app are Amsterdam, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Miami, Montreal, New York, Rome, San Francisco and Singapore.

Every city has a bunch of locations to choose from, ranging from restaurants, bars, and sightseeing destinations. Each location has plenty of pictures and information about it, such as the hours of operation. The list of locations can even be filtered to only show certain types of places, like bars or restaurants.

Every city begins with a video introduction in which Anthony Bourdain talks about why he loves the city and some of his favorite things to do in it. The production value of the videos rivals the television show. The quality of the photos is also first-rate. In addition to the introductory video, each location has a list of Dos and Don'ts, notes of what "inspires" Bourdain about the city, and information on traveling to the city.

The app definitely has a focus on food, which is no surprise given that Anthony Bourdain got his start a chef. The biggest category of locations is bars and restaurants and Bourdain usually talks about the food in the introduction videos.

For users who are actually in the city, there is an interactive map that displays locations with information, suggested layovers, and the user's layovers. The app integrates with a lot of social networks, like Facebook and Twitter, and allows people to check-in on Foursquare.