App-Happy Travel 6.9.12

Are you attached to your smartphone? Do you take it everywhere you go? Refer to it before committing to anything? You aren’t alone and your smartphone can only help enhance your travel experience. As long as you’re willing to put it away and actually enjoy your trip by looking around you and not staring at the screen all day, you can use some available apps to help you travel more easily and maybe not plan everything down to the minute (or at least have a back-up plan if you already do that).

There are millions of apps in the world and there are a good percentage of them that are completely useless or, at the very least, not all that all that helpful at even keeping you occupied for more than a few minutes. (Anyone else have that bubble-wrap app?) So, how can you weed out the gazillion travel apps and only download the ones that are useful to you? How about I start you with a list of awesome ones and you can decide if you might need others to supplement? Okay!

One of my favorite apps is ArounderTouch. You can sightsee from your couch! Okay, don’t do that, but it can help you see if an attraction will be something you like and would actually pay money for. It sucks when you get all excited about something and then waste time going there and find out it is really uncool or boring. You can add to the app with your own video taken with your phone or just enjoy the 360 degree interactive views that have already been uploaded.

Do you ever lose someone in a crowd and need to call them to figure out where to meet up? Save your minutes – and roaming fees – with Voxer. It’s not a phone call and it’s not a text. It’s a walkie-talkie app for your phone! Make sure your travel companion(s) downloads it, too, so you can use it and keep track of where everyone is. Perfect for theme parks, cruise ships and even the grocery store.

Going green or want to eat more veggies and healthier? With InBloom find all the nearby restaurants and stores that are vegan, vegetarian, eco-friendly, local food only, raw, gluten-free and more. Yes, you can lower your carbon footprint by visiting earth-friendly establishments, not to mention eat better, too! The app covers New York, Austin, LA, San Francisco and Chicago, with more planned to be added as quickly as possible.

Get healthy! Want to keep up a fitness routine or at least make sure you are expending more energy than you’re putting in your body at all those delicious restaurants and food carts? Don’t get off-track with your diet, just because you’re on vacation. Download MyFitnessPal. Use the app to monitor your progress and make your goal by adding in your current weight, your goal weight and logging your workouts and meals. Perfect for those of us that totally give up regular exercise and food rules when we travel.

Find food you love wherever you are. Use Ness to find nearby eateries based on the cuisine and what you’ve rated before. Sometimes a plan just doesn’t come together and you find yourself nowhere near where you thought and are hungry. Need suggestions for wherever you are? Then this handy app will steer you toward a restaurant that will suit your appetite. The more you use it, the more intuitive it becomes. It syncs with Facebook and Foursquare to give you friend recommendations, too!

Looking for more unique apps to help you travel better? Check out the five I wrote about in my FareCompare post for making your travel time more efficient and less stressful.

Do you have a favorite – or several – travel app? Please share!

Guest Post: How to Have a Great Time in Edinburgh on a Budget

If you're on a budget and want to visit Edinburgh and think it might be an expensive UK city to visit, don't fret, as it is actually an extremely tourist-friendly place with lots and lots of free and cheap things to see and do, which means you can get the full experience of this beautiful city without shelling out too much! If you have never been before and want some tips on what is free to see in the city then the following will be useful to you.

Art

Get your culture fix by visiting one of the many free art galleries throughout Edinburgh. If you enjoy early Renaissance to early 19th century art, then you should visit the Scottish National Gallery. 

If you prefer modern art, then head on over to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Across the road from the Modern Art Gallery you will find the Dean gallery which has a free section to visit too. 

The Scottish National Portrait Gallery has now reopended too and is free to visit and finally the Fruitmarket Gallery beside the train station is free to enter and has a rotating selection of contemporary installations and well worth a visit.

History

Edinburgh is home to many many historic churches and cathedrals and architectural wonders that you can explore for free. Many are centuries old where you can step back in time as you view the splendor of ancient murals and stained glass windows. Head to St Giles Cathedral on the Royal Mile it is the Mother Church of Presbyterianism and contains the Chapel of the Order of the Thistle. It is free to enter, but a donation is asked if you want to take pictures inside the cathedral. 

If you are a bookworm then the National Library of Scotland just around the corner is a fascinating place to spend a few hours and with free exhibitions too it is well worth a visit.

If writing is your thing, then the Writers Museum on the Royal Mile offers an insight into some of Scotland's best knows authors including Robbie Burns and Robert Louis Stephenson.

And finally, one of my favourite buildings and not mentioned in the guide books are the headquarters of the Royal Bank of Scotland on Charlotte square - possibly one of the most amazing banking halls in the country - just look up to the dome in the ceiling and you will see what I mean!

For the Kids

If you're bringing the kids, the the following is well worth visiting. Want to see a million pounds... Yes? Well the Museum on the Mound is all about the history of money and banking in Scotland and they do have a million pounds that you can see and all this for free! 

If you want an afternoon of history and also lots of cool stuff for the kids to see then head to the Museum of Scotland. Having undergone a recent renovation not only will you be blown away by the inside of the building but the exhibitions are fantastic, too!

Back on the mound, no trip to Edinburgh would be complete without a trip to the Museum of Childhood. Take a trip through the ages and see the evolution of toys and games and is fascinating for adults and kids too!

And finally, if you have had enough of being indoors head to Edinburgh’s Botanical Gardens this is a fantastic place for a walk and they have exhibitions for children about plants at the John Hope garden entrance. 

And there we have it, a big selection of free things to visit when you are in Edinburgh!

So, for those of you who like to hang on to your money, there are plenty of things to do in Edinburgh on the cheap. You'll have a rich experience without going broke in the process. 

This article was written by Ross who runs edinburghguide.org.uk and lives in Edinburgh.

Road Trippin’ in Pennsylvania

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of PA Tourism. All opinions are 100% mine.

Summer is coming and with the warm weather, plenty of people are packing up their shorts and their kids and loading the car with games and food to take a traditional road trip – and also saving money by staying closer to home and not flying to a destination. Gas prices may be high, but they’re definitely cheaper than airfare, so travelers are willing to make the sacrifice. Of course, there is a lot of fun to be said for road trips. You travel slower, but you see everything in between your house and where you’re going. It gives you the opportunity to get out of the car and see a lot of cool stuff along the way. I always loved family roadtrips and we took a lot of them. As much as I love flying, I will always love a good, old-fashioned journey in the car.

While I have yet to experience the magic of the New England states, I am always finding something fun-sounding and adding to my ever-growing list to see/do when I make it there. I may have to stay for 3 weeks! If, unlike me, you are making your way to Pennsylvania by car this year – or driving around the state in search of entertainment for your family – then you totally want to check out the Fantastic Roadtrip-a-Matic from VisitPA.com. They have a ton of pa-roadtrips to choose from in the state that start with the type of trip you want to take – everything from trips for the history buff, art critic, nature lover, the romantic and everything in between.

I immediately was taken by the title “Small Town Charmy” and clicked on Big times in small towns. I adore small towns and am always searching for their unique qualities and activities. Almost every town has some sort of attraction – maybe not those with only 210 residents – that makes it worth visiting. VisitPA has taken the guesswork out of finding such awesomeness, though, as they gather all the information you want and need and put it right at your fingertips!

I could take a 2-day road trip centered on the Great Lakes Region. Day One starts in Erie and Day Two sees me off to Meadville, Cambridge Springs and North East. Not only do I check out an art museum, but I’m going to tour an art-deco theater, see a play, shop some local merchants, taste some wine and a whole lot more! I even get maps and suggestions on where to stay and dine. Love it! And, because I’m taking my own car, I can spend more or less time anywhere I want. If I want to expand my 2-day road trip into a 3- or 4-day one, nobody’s stopping me. VisitPA’s Roadtrip-a-Matic makes it super easy to plan activities, find accommodations and get your eat on, since the great outdoors makes one H-U-N-G-R-Y. It’s all that fresh air and exercise!

Show of hands for who hates vacation planning! Okay, I can’t really see you, but I bet it’s a lot. I am in the minority of people I talk to that love planning trips, but I with a site as comprehensive as VisitPA and their Roadtrip-a-Matic, I feel like a quick search on the site would give me options for anything else in the area I would want to do and then I could pack my bags and go. Print out your road trip(s) information on PDF, gas up and get out of Dodge! It’s so easy. It takes the guesswork out of vacation planning and saves you all that time you didn’t have anyway. Spend less time hearing “I’m bored!” and more time hearing “Yay!” when you declare “Yes, we are there yet.”