A Wi-Fi World Adventure: Travel in the Age of Twitter
Once armed with my fully-functioning iPhone, I was ready for the 14-hour flight to Australia. Airlines, airports, and hotels are all supposed to be on board with the latest technology, thereby ensuring a seamless transition for all who flit around the world, right? Wrong. Hello, Marriott? Do you know how irritating it is to pay $200 (LAX Airport Marriott), $400 (Time’s Square, New York), or $800AUD per night (that was in Port Douglas, Australia) and then be charged Internet access on top of your too-steep prices? And what about obnoxious airports that don’t have free WiFi or — in the case of the international terminal at LAX — too few outlets. Cairns airport in Queensland charged $5AUD for five minutes of WiFi. Are you freaking kidding me?
Once in Sydney, it took some time to fiddle with my settings to get data and text working on my iPhone (good travel Apps here and here). I stayed in touch with my child back home by iChatting nearly every day except for five days in Port Douglas at the aforementioned Marriott that allowed incoming data but no video streaming except in Google video. A potential business partner and I used the Google video for the first time. It works surprisingly well. It must run on a different format than AOL because it worked when iChat didn’t. My business friend didn’t even realize I was in Australia. Neither did many of my friends back home. Email, that old standby, effectively kept me in touch with people.
Traveling in Australia, we had GPS in all our cars. We got around in small European cars; the same way we did when we were kids. But thanks to GPS, this time there wasn’t the non-stop stress from dad getting lost on every roundabout. GPS is priceless.
Flying home to Houston, I discovered there was no power source and no Internet access, although a PR person I met in Sydney told me of a new company in Chicago that is starting to load WiFi on planes. It will cost passengers (of course), but at least there will be Internet, which would be totally cool. We spent a lovely day (missed connection) at Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles and I Twittered and uploaded TwitPics. Since we didn’t know what to do for the day, I put it out on Twitter and four or five locals gave me suggestions, including restaurants. We followed the locals’ advice and had a great time.
Ultimately, staying connected during work and travel has never been easier. Workers everywhere groan at the ubiquity of tools to maintain contact any time, anywhere. Vacation is supposed to be about getting away, right?
Getting away is one thing. Being cut off is another. With technology, there’s no reason to be cut off. The key is to create boundaries and make technology serve us, not the other way around.
Thank you for the interesting article. I would be interested in more details on just what you arranged with AT&T. I just returned from a trip to Australia and finally gave up trying to convince AT&T to allow me to use my iPhone without sending me to bankruptcy.
I noted many iPhones in use there and the fact that they operated on different networks. In Singapore one could buy unlocked phones and use any network sim card. Very frustrating to be bound by a non-cooperating network who limits my ability to use a phone I own.
I get my phone, cable and internet via a “package deal” through COMCAST.
My cell-phones via AT&T.
The websites I have are 100% free but don’t allow for a HUGE traffic area or BIG files, must be myname.yadda.com <–[fake for the sake of example] and that works fine for my needs as a webmaster for my business since we only use image files and html and the FTP service works great. Cheap, free and RELIABLE AND you can upgrade at any time or just have them host your already bought domain name for free.
Vacation is supposed to be about getting away, right?
Your answer to this question is no. You want to stay ‘connected’. I have found that travel becomes memorable when the unexpected happens.
Are locals who twitter really locals at all?
Jerome Is this in your future?
A gentle security reminder – nothing says ‘I’m NOT home’ like a twitpic of the adventurer getting cuddly with a ‘roo. Some criminals are pretty clever and prefer to burglarize homes that are vacant for a time. Have fun but be smart.
[i]“A gentle security reminder – nothing says ‘I’m NOT home’ like a twitpic of the adventurer getting cuddly with a ‘roo. Some criminals are pretty clever and prefer to burglarize homes that are vacant for a time. Have fun but be smart.”[/i]
Pick your home sitter well. http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa165/antonia80/monkey_glock.jpg
Thanks, that was a very interesting read. The history behind the facts…