The Times they Are A Changed

Undoubtedly, the Internet has changed our lives very significantly in the last few years.  Music, individual songs, not albums, are available for purchase instantly after using an app to identify a song that is playing.  A couple of google searches and you a ready like a pro to enter a car dealership.   Wanna know what is that strange rash behind your ear?  Web MD is every  hypochondriac dream website.

With a bit of research and preparation, travel is entirely different today also thanks to the internet.  Having an iPhone and iPad with us (even with limited wifi access in Europe) made a huge difference. Here are some of the highlights:

• Not having decided where to go in Europe, we Google "European marathons" and find a list to choose from.  We select Milan. 
• A few other searches give us advice on how to get the lowest international fares for flights.
• Airbnb.com helped us find apartments to rent that were rated by previous guests.
• iPhone and iPad apps provided us with Italian and French dictionaries and a set of maps for every city visited (available even when offline, this was huge!)
• Courtesy of iTunes, we watched a movie of our choice on the plane and a couple while visiting Europe
• Thanks to a combination of apps, we maintained some contact with our jobs to keep up to date on email (very minimal, really)
• About.com gave us hints of how much to tip, were to take a walking tour and what was a must-see in every visit
• Yelp, Google and a number of other sites recommended restaurants in every visited city
• Wikipedia provided more details than the best trained tour guide for the landmarks we visited (all downloaded and available offline through the off line maps app)
• Also through the off-line map apps we had access to train, metro and bus maps
• Of course, our iPhone and AT&T gave us access to phone and text messages at a surprisingly low rate (as long as we kept them brief and few) to save us in a moment of need

I know I missed a number of things we did, searched and downloaded, but I think you get the point.  The times they are indeed a changin', and this is just the beginning…  Bring it on!