JetBlue on Jan. 12 became the world’s first airline to offer free Wi-Fi to all of its passengers on all flights. Their Fly-Fi service offers connection speeds of 12 to 15 megabits per second (mbps), fast enough to stream movies. In addition to its domestic routes, JetBlue flies from the US to 21 non-US destinations in North America, the Caribbean and South America.
The Paris Chamber of Commerce has released the app “Yes I speak Touriste!” to help foreign visitors each find Parisian businesses where their native language is spoken.
The free app includes an interactive map that shows locations of restaurants, shops, hotels, etc., where no translator will be needed.
Available on iOS and Android, it offers entries in nine languages, including English, Chinese and Arabic. There is a website (www.yesispeaktouriste.com) with extra information, and a printed guide is available.
You can purchase self-guided food tours of Berlin with the app bitemojo, free on iTunes and Android. Once you activate a tour, selected eateries are notified that you will arrive in due time to receive “bites,” specially designed small entrées, served with chef’s commentary (sometimes in English).
With App in the Air, you can track your flights, receive real-time schedule and gate changes and access guides and maps to 9,000 airports worldwide. Quick links on the app assist you in hiring taxis and purchasing train tickets. (As of press time, train tickets are available only from London Heathrow Express and Moscow Aeroexpress.) The app also tracks miles flown for mileage programs.
Visitors to Abu Dhabi, UAE, can download two free apps for iOS or Android. Abu Dhabi Events lists sports, music, food and cultural festivals in the city and environs. DARB provides bus and ferry schedules, airline arrival and departure times and customizable route maps with real-time traffic updates. Users can also hire a taxi and pay for public parking on DARB, which requires a 3G or Wi-Fi connection with the GPS enabled in order to function fully.
If you’re taking a cell phone on a trip to another country, be sure to notify your cell phone provider to see if you need to make a change to your calling plan.*
On a recent trip, I got stuck for 24 hours in the Nairobi, Kenya, airport. The airport had no local representatives for US airlines, so I had to call Delta Air Lines in the US to straighten out my flights. To rectify the problem and get a new ticket, the conversation lasted 1½ hours. My phone bill was an extra $250 because of that call.
When I visited Portugal in May 2016, I rented a portable Wi-Fi hotspot from Portugal Internet (www.portugalinternet.com).
For visitors to South Africa, the app “Official Guide to Cape Town,” released by Cape Town Tourism, helps users to find transportation, landmarks, hotels, restaurants and shops. Including a calendar of events and an easy-to-use map, it also suggests itineraries and shares advice from other users.
The app is free for iPhone, iPad and Android and does not need to be connected to the Internet to work.
The Likeways app, available for free on iTunes, suggests walking routes in major cities worldwide. A user inputs his starting location and where he would like to walk to plus the kinds of sites he would like to see along the way (museums, shops, restaurants, etc.). Likeways then creates two walking routes: the shortest one from the user’s location to his destination and a longer route that includes sites of interest.