by F. Andrew Taylor
If there is one constant in the tradeshow industry, it’s travel. Well, travel, not enough sleep, and a diet consisting of whatever you can get to quickly, but for this month we’ll look at apps to help you with travel.
TripIt
Most of us no longer use travel agents and nearly none of us have a personal assistant to keep track of all of our travel information. TripIt is one of the most popular trip planning and organizing apps for a reason. It requires very little effort on the user’s part as it draws on your emails and other info on your phone to create and track your itinerary. On a recent trip I found myself searching through emails from a month or two prior trying to find my flight confirmation number. TripIt would have already gathered that and made it simple to access in an easily readable format. The app can also let you know your itineraries, hotel or Airbnb info, rental car info and should you need it, Hovercraft tickets. It is also easy to share the info with associates you need to meet and coordinate with.
Google Trips
Similar to TripIt, this app gets its information from your Gmail account. You can get customized guides, maps and even tours of the area you’re in, assuming you’ve somehow managed to schedule some leisure time on your trip. The information can be stored offline, if you’re in a location where Wi-Fi might not be as readily available. There are more areas without decent Wi-Fi than most people living in large cities might imagine.
Flight Aware
This app recently became available for Androids in addition to iOS. It shows the real time flight status for commercial flights on live maps. Flights can be tracked by registration, route, airline, flight number, city or airport code. It’s a great tool if you’ve got someone on the ground trying to coordinate picking up people from different flights from different places.
Lyft and Uber
Maybe you don’t use these yet, due to your loyalty to your uncle Herb, who drives a taxi. If you’re one of the dozen or so people who aren’t utilizing these ride sharing apps yet, get on it now. They cost less than a cab and usually arrive in under five minutes. Like Flight Aware, you can track where your ride is on your phone and step right out of the door to the ride, skipping indeterminate waits in inclement weather. Herb will forgive you. Eventually.
F. Andrew Taylor is an award-winning journalist, artist, photographer, cartoonist and illustrator. He also works in film production, does local historical research and has been an amateur stunt driver and rodeo participant. Contact him at fandrewt@exhibitcitynews.com.
This story originally appeared in the May/June issue of Exhibit City News, p. 14. For original layout, visit https://issuu.com/exhibitcitynews/docs/ecnflipbook_mayjune_2019_web
