Taking off Travel blog

No matter where you go in the world, you can see people tapping away on a Blackberry. It’s fair to say it’s taken the business world by storm (yes, the pun IS intended). In the past we have looked at iPhone applications for travelers. Now it’s the turn of the Blackberry. Here are the best free Blackberry apps for travelers.

10. Flight and Hotel Travel Search by Kayak

Search Kayak.com for deals on hotels and flights.  You can also check flight status, useful if you’re on the move.

9. Tube Buddy

Traveling in London? Tube Buddy gives live departure boards for tube lines and Underground and DLR service updates.

8. SimulTravel GPS

This is a quick way to find a hotel while you’re traveling. You can even find out if the hotel down the street is a better deal than the one you are staying in.

7. OpenTable

Make free restaurant reservations at over 10,000 restaurants in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom, and earn reward points while you do it. Read more »

I’ve recently discovered a great business travel tool and I didn’t have to spend a dime to get it. When you’re on a business trip to a new city, you need to be able to find your way around very quickly so that you don’t waste valuable time. Ovi Maps (formerly Nokia Maps) helps you to do just that. If you have one of the recent touchscreen Nokia phones, then this mapping program comes as part of the package. I recently put it to the test, using my Nokia 5800 Xpress Music.

Getting Started

In order to use the maps program on your phone you will need to download some maps. There’s no need to worry about the often prohibitive cost of data downloads. The bundled Nokia software also includes a desktop maps program, so fire it up and download the maps to your computer. That can take a while on slow connections, but once it’s done, you can sync the maps you need to your phone.

The maps are divided by continent and then by major area. For the UK, you can load maps for either England, Ireland, Scotland or Wales, but not (as far as I could tell) for specific regions such as London. Similarly, the US maps allow you to load maps for each state. I loaded up New York and New Jersey in preparation for my trip and set my phone to use the program offline to avoid roaming charges. Read more »

GoPlanit offers instant trip planning. Just type in your destination and you get a selection of activities, dining, lodging and flight options that you  can choose from and add to your itinerary. It’s a great way to get a snapshot of what’s available in a particular area, though some areas are better represented than others. For example, I plugged in Hollywood, Florida as a destination and got a handful of activity suggestions, a couple of dining options and not much else.

Creating An Itinerary

Create an itinerary for a major city (San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, Seattle, Boston, Atlanta or San Diego) and GoPlanit really comes into its own. Start by putting in the start and end dates for your trip, hit the Plan It button and you get an instant itinerary with a range of well spaced activities for each day. You can fill in the gaps if you wish with other activities you want to do. Read more »

While doing the rounds of some travel blogs, I came across PlanetEye. It aims to be a trip planning service with a difference, incorporating editorial content on destinations with useful information and help with bookings. I decided to put it to the test.

Planet Eye screenshot

Setup And First Steps

Getting set up was easy, but I hit my first snag when trying to create a travel pack for a forthcoming trip to Hollywood, Florida. You get the chance to add destinations, but of the handful of Hollywoods I was offered, I couldn’t tell which one was in Florida. So I created an empty travel pack, and added Florida as my destination, hoping that I would get the chance to specify later. Sure enough, I was able to find my exact destination on the map, but I couldn’t find a way to save it as part of my travel pack. Read more »

I love looking at new gadgets and there are some great ones on this month’s list.

Get Fit

There’s no reason to slack on fitness just because you’re on a business trip. On my last trip, I saw dozens of people get up early to use the hotel’s fitness room. If you’re lucky enough to have good weather, then walking or jogging are an option - and that’s where the Live-Lite comes in. From Perception Digital, this device measures steps and your heart rate, ensuring that you stay on top of your fitness regime.

Ergonomic Elegance

I don’t know about you, but I often travel with an external keyboard for my laptop to save my wrists. The trouble is that it takes up a lot of space. However, I may not have to do that for much longer, since Goldtouch has released a foldable ergonomic keyboard, the GoldTouch Go! It only weighs a pound and is supposed to be comfortable to use - $139 seems a small price to pay to avoid tendonitis.

Mouse Phone

For me, the Skype Travel Mouse comes under the category of ‘neat, but do you really need it?’ It’s a mouse that slides open to reveal a phone keypad. It also has a decent sized LCD display at 128×64 pixels, and is $35 plus shipping. The fact that you only need to use a single USB port for both mouse and phone is undoubtedly a plus, so it could be worth a look.

Charge It All - Or Almost

The Charge4All is yet another device that allows you to charge multiple devices from a single power connection. It won’t charge your laptop or anything else that needs high voltage, but it will charge MP3 players, cell phones, digital cameras and the like. It’s $29.95.

Swiss Army Drive

You’ll need to pack these in your checked baggage, but the SwissFlash and Presentation Master Swiss Army Knives have all the usual array of gadgets as well as a flash drive with a maximum capacity of 32GB. There are also versions with built in laser pointers. Prices range from the low 60s to over $300.

New In Japan

We can’t wait for this one to hit our shores. It’s a credit card sized digital voice recorder - perfect for taking voice notes on the move (that’s if you haven’t already got it built into your phone). Rumor has it that you can record up to 30 hours of digital voice with this compact gadget.