1) Tell you about the amazing iPad apps we used while traveling - I was lucky enough to get an iPad from my work last fall, but it wasn't until our trip to Europe that I really ever felt like the thing was worth the price if I would have had to purchase it myself. However, the value we got out of that silly piece of electronics was definitely enough to persuade me that it is worth it. Do yourself a favor. If you don't have an iPad and have a major trip coming up, budget the price of the iPad into your overall trip budget. You will not regret it, it won't seem like such an outlay compared to flights, hotels, etc. and - BONUS! - you'll have an iPad when you get home so you can squirrel away the hours playing Bejeweled, Words with Friends or Draw Something with the rest of us.
So, let me tell you about Ulmon, my new best friend.
They make a series of apps for travel called ____Guide2Go. The apps are $1.99 each, and they include a full suite of Wikipedia articles, Killer Maps that zoom to the Nth degree and truly help you get around, Points of Interest (for things like restaurants, libraries, police stations, churches, etc.), and some even have the full subway map (Paris, London, Rome and New York). They even have something that I didn't realize existed - passive GPS, which basically means you don't have to have 3G on your iPad, the app can use nearby wi-fi networks to locate you even when you are not connected to them! Oh, and everything is available offline.
I cannot tell you how many times we used the iPad around Paris. Everything is integrated, so we could be looking at the map and see a Wikipedia article about a museum, decide we want to go there, use the map to find the nearest Metro stop, use the Metro map to figure out where to get off the metro, and use the passive GPS once we got off the Metro to figure out where we were and how to get to the museum. PHENOMENAL.
They also have a lighter version for a ton more cities called CityMaps2Go. It's one app you download and then for each city, you download that city map within the app. Once you download it, it is fully offline, so you can use it on the run. CityMaps2Go have all the POIs and also have even more detailed maps and the passive GPS. You can zoom in almost to the building level, which was really helpful in Prague and Krakow where the streets can be very confusing. I HIGHLY recommend these apps (and the iPad to go with them. Think about how much you'll save on maps, not to mention your time and peace of mind.
2) Make the photo book - I am in the process of putting together my photo book. And by in process I mean I have populated the online book with all of my photos and now need to start cutting and pruning the pages so that the book is not 116 pages and $125.51 (which it is at this point).
I will post a link to my preview once it's done!!
Carissa
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