Travel tools and apps

Planning a trip can be the most stressful part of your journey but with so many tools available how does one choose? One of my favourite tools is Tripit and that is just one of dozens in this presentation prepared for patrons of Noosa Library Service.

Have a look at this range of apps and sites designed to enhance your travel planning, then choose some to enable easy management of your data and photos while travelling. My newest piece of hardware gets a mention too. Check out some ideas for creating your own travel ebooks and view some suggestions for preserving your memories upon returning home.




Here's a short video to guide you in making your own etravel guide

Related post: Making Readlists Use a Readlist to compile all those pages you want to take with you.


Follow Travel apps and tips to keep up to date with the latest offerings.

Can you find it again?

I'll send you that link!

Have you ever been talking to someone who promised to send you a great link but now they can't find it? My guess is they didn't know how to use bookmarks effectively and probably did not know where to look for their web history.

Bookmarks and Favourites

These terms are interchangeable when used in reference to a web browser. 

Below are a series of screenshots showing you how to add to, edit and use your bookmarks in Internet Explorer, Chrome for desktop and tablets and Safari for iDevices.

If you prefer to use an online bookmarking service I recommend Diigo, but do investigate Delicious and Google bookmarks. Online services like these allow you to add tags, so that the search function finds and groups by the tags you have used. Their biggest advantage is that they can be viewed on any platform and are independent of learning the quirks of a particular browser's peculiarities. When one upgrades to a new computer or mobile device those bookmarks are all still there, not lost in the collapse of old hardware.

I have used Diigo for long term storage and tagging of bookmarks for several years and Chrome provides quick access to the sites I need daily.

Adding to the gadget collection

The Wireless Flash Drive

Here's my newly unpacked wireless flash drive with it's accompanying instruction brochure.

At last a device that enables easy transfer of files from any mobile device to the flash drive, to a computer, to another mobile device without the need for cloud storage or internet connectivity. How you ask? It has it's own built in wireless network enabled on your other devices through apps or a web browser.

What a boon this will be for travellers enabling the transfer of all those photos from smartphones to this 64GB (32 or 16 also available) drive without having to be concerned about provider network limits, speed of uploads or limited WiFi connectivity in remote areas.  A backup solution for while one is on the road.

No need to fill up your mobile device with large files, particularly video files. Perhaps now you can buy that new tablet or phone with less storage at a lower price and use this drive for the extra capacity.

After the initial charging of the device, which is done by plugging in to a standard USB charger, I was pleased to be able to connect my iPad, 1st generation Samsung smartphone and computer by having them all on the same wireless network which is provided by this small device. Files can be added to and downloaded from the drive. 

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No financial gain was sought or given to me by my independent review of this device. More information available from the SanDisk site.