This will be our first trip fully equipped with mobile devices -- iPhones, iPad, laptop. In the 2010 trip, Andrea's BlackBerry proved very useful in finding restaurants, booking motels along the way and the other things that a smartphone can do.
This year, we both have iPhones, which are of course even more versatile. The Volvo does not have GPS but the phones will navigate us through whatever local maps we need. Instead of feeding CDs into the radio for audiobooks, we have downloaded several books on audible.com to listen to on longer stretches of driving. We don't have to worry about carrying along an extra camera to take photos. For music, we have Pandora or the iPods on the phones.
My iPad, when combined with the Bluetooth keyboard, is a mini-laptop, and will be handy for emails, blogging (!), and Web surfing along the way. The Kindle app will probably provide all the reading material I need. In addition, Andrea is bringing her laptop.
We have not completely made the transition. I will still rely on the road atlas for long-distance planning and connections after having printed out the basic route from Google maps. In my last post, I mentioned the print guides we rely on during our road trips. I may take along a couple of print books just for old times' sake.
I've looked at some of the road trip apps for finding cheap gas, calculating your gas mileage, etc. but it's a little too much bookkeeping for my taste and since we're not on a student budget we will probably live without.
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