Smartphone-augmented travel
Sunday, 7 February, 2010 — links travel
We occasionally drive up to Pennsylvania to visit Robin’s family. As it happens, our schedule usually puts us near DC and Baltimore at times that seem too close to rush hour to really want to chance driving I-95 straight through to Philadelphia. We’ve also noticed that I-95 from Fredericksburg to Alexandria is frustratingly stop-and-go. So, on our last few trips, we’ve made ample use of the iPhone’s internal GPS and the Maps application. While we don’t have experience using an Android-based phone or a Blackberry, Google offers much of the same functionality via the browser.
The iPhone’s also been a big help for other travel in New York, Northern California and just our general day trips around central North Carolina.
In that vein, here’s what we’ve found helpful when traveling:
- Seeing where backups are and re-routing around them (see the image to the right for why this is a good idea).
- Maps has added labels to buildings. There are also icons for restaurants, gas stations and such.
- Just being able to use the phone to search for what’s near-by is incredibly helpful. We found a Safeway-hosted Starbucks on an unfamiliar Delaware highway that way.
- The iPhone maps application and Google Maps both provide info on public transit in many cites. In New York, we could get directions that mixed the subway and walking and included departure times.
- Use Google street view to scope a couple streets over for food ideas.
There are also situations we’d like more assistance with:
- If traffic is “backed up,” it’d be helpful to know if it’s affect all lanes.
- Knowing where tolls are, what the toll is, and the status of E-ZPass lanes.
- If construction has moved a bus stop. Admittedly, this isn’t easy, but, over Labor Day weekend, we were a little frustrated trying to find the right stop for a bus that completely bypassed the street we were on in Lower Manhattan.
There’s also a caveat; Map locations and pinpoints are approximations. There are a number of restaurants and stores that aren’t accurately mapped, beyond being on the same block as where the map shows them.
Sure, adventuring in the unknown and finding your own way is a lot of fun, we’ve found solving small needs infinitely less frustrating when we can see we’re only a two block walk, or half-mile driving detour away from what we need. That keeps us happy travelers, eager to see what’s around the next bend with our own eyes.