Bad Dog! No Biscuit
Just another self satisfying blog
A Connected Yet Disconnected Vacation
Hello World! Its been a while hasn’t it? Its been a busy few months that’s kept me busy. Most recently I took a long deserved vacation to the Caribbean. It’s been a long time since I had the opportunity to just kick back and relax so I wanted to make sure the whole thing went as smoothly as possible. Planning my little getaway I focused on what tools were available that could make it as painless as possible.
I started out by searching for the best flight and hotel prices. I used Kayak, both on the web and mobile to determine the best prices. A neat trick that the app offers is the ability to set price alerts that send push notifications on prices that fall within a targeted price range. This works best of course when you have a few weeks to plan and execute on that purchase. After booking my trip I exported the info to Worldmate where it populated my flight and hotel itinerary, I also through my driver contact info for good measure. I’m normally a fan of the Reminders app on my iPhone as my go to place to place to jot down what needs to be done, however I had already decided not to take my iPhone with me so I needed a cross platform alternative. I chose Wunderlist as my to do list manager, there’s an app available on iOS, Android and for the purposes of this trip, Windows Phone. I used it to track my list of ToDos (of course) activities and my packing list. For good measure I also downloaded the Delta Airlines app which offers push alerts to flight changes and mobile check in.
I decided early on that I didn’t want to be super connected while on my vacation, otherwise whats the point right? I knew taking along an Android device would pose a significant distraction (app overload!) so I settled on the HTC Titan with Windows Phone 7. There’s a decent app market available for this OS and the camera on the device would serve as a good substitute for those moments I didn’t feel like taking a dedicated point and shoot camera along. The apps that I used in planning for this trip were all multi platform so getting the data I needed on this unit was no problem. I was able to cache a few playlists offline using Spotify and loaded up a few movies and TV shows for the flight to and from our destination. And finally I loaded up the Amazon Kindle app with a new book that I could enjoy during those lazy moments relaxing in the sun.
Do you have any stories or tips on vacationing connected yet disconnected? If so feel free to comment below.
Classic MG Roadster
Saw this beauty on the way into a Bolivian Restaurant in RI
Vintage Mercedes Roadster
Gotta love the classics!
Evoque
Without question my favorite Range Rover
Green Thumb!
Food always tastes better when you grow your own herbs and spices. My little window herb garden will continue to grow…
