In April, my wife and I spent a few days in New Jersey and New York. I reflected recently on how much technology I used to plan and execute the few days there. I booked our flights online, secured a place to stay through Airbnb, and downloaded apps, which gave me maps and schedules of the New Jersey and New York Metro system. I secured Broadway tickets online and got recommendations for places to eat. When we got lost, I just asked my phone to guide us to our destination. This doesn’t include the countless hours spent on Google Maps ahead of time trying to memorize the landscape. Here are some other tech solutions that may help you with your vacation this summer.

Route Planning

A friend recently turned me on to the Waze app, which is a community-powered mapping and navigation app that gives you real-time traffic information and road alerts. Waze was acquired by Google last year and is available as a free smart phone app. It can help you in planning and executing your road trip by alerting you to traffic delays, road closures, speed traps, and changes in traffic patterns. It is a great way to get real-time alerts from other Waze users.

The Nearest Gas

One of the largest costs of an automobile trip is gasoline. While Waze provides gas station locations and prices, I have relied on the GasBuddy app, which is available for the iPhone, Android, or Blackberry platforms. This is a community-based app that relies on user input to locate gas stations and post their prices. People who input gas prices are eligible for possible prizes.

Price Comparisons

There are many travel sites on the web, but Kayak searches those sites to determine the lowest price airlines, car rentals, hotels, and more. This is available as a web app for planning your vacation ahead of time or a mobile app for planning on the fly. Kayak is a good way to make your vacation bargain hunting more efficient.

Where to Eat

At the end of the day, we all need to eat, but when you are on an adventure, you may not know what is available or where. For some it may be as easy as looking up to see the ubiquitous golden arches. For others, however, it may not be that easy. For example, if you are gluten intolerant and you are traveling in a strange town or country, how do you find a place that will accommodate your dietary restrictions?  Not to worry. There is an app for you! Findmeglutenfree is a web and mobile app that will search by location for local gluten free options. Other apps cater to needs such as a kosher diet. There are so many options available that it is a matter of finding the right one for you.

Thoughts

With all of these options available, I wonder if vacation planning or the actual vacation itself is more stressful or less stressful. The ability to secure every last detail ahead of time or on the road takes an incredible amount of time. Is the payoff worth it? Whatever happened to a spontaneous road trip? Do those exist anymore? Tell me about your vacation this summer and the tech that you use. I would love to hear about it.

About Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown is an IT professional, adjunct faculty for the University of Oregon, and academic director of the UO Applied Information Management Master’s Degree Program. He writes about IT and business topics that keep him up at nigh