After reading about an Apple app called OffMaps² in a subscriber’s article (“A Self-Drive Tour of Croatia Plus A Cruise Along the Dalmatian Coast,” Aug. ’15, pg. 30), I immediately downloaded the app to my iPad, since my wife and I were planning a trip to Cusco and Machu Picchu.
Beaches, castles, wild ponies…. Near Swansea, Wales’ Gower Peninsula is a designated “Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.” Visitors can download the “This is Gower” app, containing maps and directions for 14 walking trails. It also has audio and visual guides (with pictures and videos) on 80 locations, using GPS to notify walkers when they’ve reached an area of interest. The app is free on Android and iOS.
The “EAT SMART ABROAD” app can help you decipher menus and figure out which foods to buy in markets where you don’t speak the language.
Based on the “EAT SMART” series of culinary guidebooks for 12 countries, the app actually comprises 12 apps, each with the two glossaries found at the end of each book in the series, plus the Menu Guide for deciphering menus and the Food & Flavors Guide for shopping.
Created by Gingko Press (Madison, WI; 608/233-5488, www.eatsmartguides.com), it costs $1.99 from iTunes, Google Play or Amazon.
The Swiss “Family Trips” app allows travelers to search over 1,000 destinations and events in Switzerland by region and age group to plan appropriate family trips. The app, available for free for iOS and Android, also can suggest accommodations.
For people planning to visit the Cambridge American Cemetery in England or the Normandy American Cemetery in France, two apps include driving directions, parking info, hours of operation, cemetery maps, tours to follow and stories about Americans buried there. Released by the American Battle Monuments Commission, the apps can be downloaded for free on iTunes and Google Play.
The Booking Now app, by Booking.com, facilitates reserving hotel rooms around the world within 48 hours of check-in time.
When searching for a room, a user can specify hotel room preferences, including price range, Wi-Fi availability and having meals included in the price. The app can also use GPS to find the hotels meeting the user’s preferences nearest to his location and then give directions to the chosen hotel.
View wildlife of Arctic Manitoba at the “Journey to Churchill,” a 10-acre permanent exhibit in the Assiniboine Park Zoo (2595 Roblin Blvd., Winnipeg, MB, Canada, R3P 2N7; 204/927-6000, www.assiniboineparkzoo.ca).
See Arctic foxes, caribou and musk oxen in the “Wapusk Lowlands,” watch seals and polar bears through underwater viewing windows in the “Gateway to the Arctic” and see northern lights projected onto a domed ceiling in the theater.
For visits to Australia, the GPS-based “Welcome to Country” iPhone app alerts the user whenever he crosses the boundary of a traditional tribal group. He is directed to a video in which an elder or “knowledge carrier” provides information about the culture and customs in the area, using speech or song or showing a dance or ceremony.
Version 1.0 of the app has a map and covers more than 30 indigenous tribes and language groups (from a total of over 500). Visit the iOS AppStore.
The Mobile Passport Control App allows US travelers to submit passport and Customs declarations information on their smartphones or tablets before encountering the Customs desk.
On the app (free on iOS and Android), a traveler creates a personal profile with his passport information and submits a Customs declaration in the “New Trip” section. A Customs receipt with a bar code will be downloaded onto the user’s phone or tablet to be presented at Customs along with a passport.
Focusing on Leipzig, Germany, the Leipzig Travel App includes city travel tips, directions to tourist information offices, maps that point out sites near your location, an events calendar, places to catch public transportation or taxis, emergency numbers and the ability to book day tours and accommodations. Free on Android and iTunes.