Travel Tools
Aug 23rd, 2006
Soundwalk
I can’t remember where I first heard about the Soundwalk audio walking tours (although I suspect it was probably Gridskipper), but I was immediately interested. I loved the idea of a walking tour that I could load onto my iPod and do at my leisure.
So last year when I was in New York to see Spamalot I bought three of their tours to take with me (the Brooklyn Dumbo, Lower East Side, and Meat Packing District walking tours). In the course of my visit I managed to do all three, and thoroughly enjoyed them. I even got to meet the narrator of the Meat Packing tour (at one point she instructs you to ring her bell, and you can go up to her gallery and talk to her). Of the three I liked the Lower East Side tour the least, all though that one was still pretty good and the Dumbo tour the most.
So how do they work? Every tour comes with an audio file and a pdf of the tour route, but really you only need the pdf to find your starting point, and I suppose, if you get hopelessly lost along the way, to reorient yourself. But the directions are usually pretty clear and I mostly always found myself ahead of the narrator, and had to wait on the corner (like they suggest) until they could catch up. One problem I ran into, was with both the Meat Packing tour and the Dumbo tour, the areas are changing so quickly, that some of the mentioned locations were gone, or inaccessible. Although this only happened a few times and didn’t ruin my enjoyment.
For our upcoming trip, I purchased the Wall Street and Little Italy tours. I don’t know if we’ll have time to do both, but I’m sure we can squeeze at least one in.
The company also offers a walking tours of Paris (which we will definitely be using on our trip next year), India and other locals in and around New York.
Overall I think this is a brilliant concept whose time has come. I’ve found a few other companies offering similar things and those links can be found on the resource pages.
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Jun 21st, 2006
Pocket Maps—Part 2
I’ve created a pocket map guide for comic book stores in Manhattan.
Feel free to download the PDF.
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Jun 19th, 2006
Pocket Maps
“I’ve come up with something I’m really quite excited about: pocket maps.
Let me explain.
You may recall this post from a while back in which I made location maps for sites and shops of interest and put them on my iPod. And I still like that idea, but the problem comes when you don’t have your iPod out or don’t want to take it out, for whatever reason. That’s were pocket maps come in.
Using the technique detailed here and the fantastic Wayfaring web site (you could also just use Google Maps), I created a booklet showing the locations of various museums around New York city. I plan to create a few more of these for carrying around (stores, restaurants, etc.) and the great thing about them is they fit conveniently into the back pocket of a Molskine.
I offer up a PDF of my New York City Museum map to any one who wants it. Feel free to print it and disseminate at will.
Down load the PDF here.
The museums included in this Pocket Map are: Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, International Center of Photography, Skyscraper Museum, Neue Gallerie, Museum of Modern Art, and the Guggenheim.
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Jun 8th, 2006
Pod Guides
There are a number of different guides available for downloading and storing on your iPod to make your travels better. Some of them use the Notes section of your iPod, and some use the Photos section. Here are a few that I have come across:
Rough Guides Podscrolls—I just found this one today and downloaded the guides for Amsterdam, Paris and New York. It uses the Photos section of the iPod, so you have to create albums in iPhoto and sync them through iTunes. Only a few cities are offered at this time.
Pod CityGuides—This one has a ton of cities on offer and stores them in the Notes section, so they take up relatively little space. Pod CityGuides updates frequently too, so it’s a good idea to check the site to make sure you have the most current version before you travel.
iSubwayMaps.com—The guy that runs this site has chopped up subway maps from various cities and formatted them to fit on the iPod screen. There are versions for both the iPod Photo and iPod with video. I’m not sure how useful they are in the field as it’s hard to get a sense of overall position, but if you know where you need to go you may be all right. Great idea anyway.
There are more of course. I know that the Seattle Weekly offers a dining guide for the iPod and I’ve heard tell of one that lists pizza places in New York. Or you could always make your own, of course.
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Apr 24th, 2006
Amsterdam Audio Tours
This site offers a couple of walking tours of Amsterdam.
I’m particularly excited about the Rembrandt tour.
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