Europe: Getting Around in the Digital Age

Navigating Europe Digitally

Gone are the days when you used to tour a new destination, fiddling with a bunch of maps and guides in your hands. Those things are passes as the new digital age has crept in with innovations that can save a large number of our trees by biding paper adieu and welcoming the e-paper! Navigating a new destination now has become a more hassle free process thanks to the e-book reader applications and new technological advancement that has fashioned in new gadgets, which people can easily carry around.

The PDF reader and the gps in your smart phone can come handy when maneuvering unknown junctions. In fact Mr. Steve Jobs has yet again fashioned an ionic tablet the iPad which is loaded with applications fit for you to go in for a virtual tour too. Touring Europe has never been the same since the advent of these new-age toys. The Kindle form Amazon.com, the Sony reader, the nook and the iPad are here to rule the era. They enable a person to carry thousands of PDF in them, which are available for free or at a low cost – thanks to the World Wide Web. You can comfortably load your reader with several eBooks which will satisfy your inquisitiveness when on a multi-destination trip.

The wonderful app iWhatever which runs on your iPad provides a free or a cheap audio tour. This trend has caught up with tourist offices and museums as well who are offering the same for the digital savvy tourist. Italy’s Padua proffers MP3 tours covering five walking routes. These can be downloaded for free from www.turismopadova.it and if you are there then you can even borrow the device. Bath’s Tourism downloadable Jane Austen walking tour incorporates a printable map as well. This is available at http://visitbath.co.uk. www.acoustiguide.com offers free audio tours of Prague’s Charles Bridge, London’s National Portrait Gallery and many other major sites in Europe. Apart from these, interviews by travel expert are also made available for the ease of the tourists.

Some places are going beyond audio and has included pictures and videos with audio. The Château de Chenonceau in France’s Loire region allows downloads from www.chenonceau.com. Versailles’ free app for iPhones uses GPS to figure out your location and instantly pops up related videos, narration, and slideshows.

The new internet-savvy generation logs on the internet to get a complete low down about their vacation or destination to make their journey a bon-voyage by downloading the content in their laptops, palmtops, ipod, ipad, smart phone or any other handheld thingamajig available on the surface of the earth. Not only new doodads have captured the market but the software applications too serve the travelers. Google maps and GPS have made the paper maps a passes. Twitter, Facebook, Emails, Blogs have long replaced postcards and guide books that were once hovered by the tourist. The pay phone around the corner of the street too remains idle thanks to the common most tech toy, the cell phones. International tourist can use the paying Cards available in Europe to be in touch with their near and dear ones on the go. Calling over the internet is the easiest and the cheapest mode available.

Even though technology has come a long way in replacing all the age old techniques yet it remains a foolish aid when you lock your common sense and allow it to rule you. Technology is not flawless and lacks rationality. Sometimes it can be misleading since its possible that all the information provided is not accurate. Age old methods allowed you to mix with the locales and discover more about the place but technology will make this prospect elusive forever. Even though wireless technology can enable us to buy books and things on a go, watch a movie when traveling between destinations and guide us through unfamiliar paths, it still calls for human logistics to make travel comfy and fun. 

By TravelMole Staff Writer for Travel Secrets  (January 11, 2011)