For a lot of people the idea of travelling is a mixture of pain and pleasure, whether you are going on a family camping holiday or booking a cruise from Southampton. They love eating in foreign restaurants and exploring local markets and shops. However, being far from home brings with a fair few hassles as well. Is it possible that by using better technology we could avoid some of these problems?
Travel Light
Packing is one of the great issues for just about everyone who is going away. It doesn’t matter whether it is a year in the jungle or a couple of days in Blackpool; there always seems to be far more to take away than you can fit in to the luggage. Now there is a smart solution, and it involves taking a smart phone, a tablet or even an Ultrabook. These devices can go in your bag instead of guide books, language guides, maps and all sorts of other things. By choosing your gadgets carefully you can travel a lot lights and also have better information than ever before.
Be Prepared
Another point which it is worth remembering is that going to a foreign city on a short trip can turn into a race against the clock. I think most people can relate to the feeling of, “Eiffel Tower? Check. Champs Élysées? Check. Sacré Coeur? Arrgh, taxi!”
If your foreign trips always seem to end in a rush to squeeze in all of the big attractions then you will pleased to get the chance to prepare before you even leave home. By getting the right augmented reality applications, for example, you can be sure that you will get a private guided tour of the place whenever you want it.
Stay in Touch
This used to be one of the really big hassles about travelling, didn’t it? With the cost of phone calls from abroad most of us could only manage a rushed conversation with our friends and family before running out of francs, marks or pesetas (remember them?).
Now there are quite a few different ways of making sure that you stay in touch no matter where you are. Perhaps the best one for frequent travellers is the new style of world phone, which works anywhere and has been specifically designed to be an emergency backup option which you can forget about until you need it. However, most of us probably settle for using mobile devices such as tablets and smart phones to make phone calls and video calls from foreign shores.
We can’t forget social media either, of course. What modern holiday would be complete without loading up some comments and some photos of the beach for the people who are shivering with cold back home? Yes, it’s a tough life travelling the world with modern technology but someone has to do it.