USA Travel - Technology

April 2012


I can't finish this blog about our travels around the USA without saying a word about how technology makes or doesn't make a difference to travel!

How would this trip have been different say even 20 years ago without any technological advances?

Just in case there are any of you that didn't know, I like technology! Something to do with boys and their toys some would unkindly say.

Of course we would have completed the trip, (people did travel 20 years ago!), but it would have been different. Getting around we would have used good old fashioned hard copy fold out maps. Fine in a car with a navigator I might add but not too crash hot on a bike. You would have to try and memorise the route, a technique that failed miserably with me. Might just be my ability to move the necessary brain cells!

My Kiwi GPS

I know the Internet was around then but it certainly wasn't as sophisticated as it is now, so searches would have been more rudimentary. You would for instance have used ordinary phones to phone and make reservations if you are the 'phone ahead' type, who likes to know where they are going to be putting their heads down at the end of each day.

I believe the roading system has always been quite well marked in the USA but the cities have got bigger and faster so the turnpikes, overpasses and junctions have got more complex and you can go around them a lot faster. Faster navigation is required.  Off these roads you definitely need artificial guidance if you don't want to waste valuable time.

We were doing a highly mobile motorbike journey with only time over breakfast or down time at the hotels or motels at the end of the day to sort out the next days route and stay. We only 'winged' it on couple of occasions as it happened that worked out OK although a degree of luck was involved.

Things I consider as essential (in order) for a journey of this nature are -

GPS - I will never ever ever go to the USA again without one of these devices. It would have made my first days in LA before Nev, Phil & Murray arrived, soooo much easier! I would have found my way down to Huntington Beach and back to the Custom Hotel in plenty of time and would've been at the hotel to meet the boys when they arrived. Instead of arriving late, tired and with a huge headache. I would have found The Rock Store and back through Malibu much more efficiently. I knew Phil was bringing a GPS and at the time was quite happy to just slot in behind him and the others and use his. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. By Tucson I'd had enough and Nev & I tracked down a Garmin Nuvi50, (with free lifetime map upgrades!). What a difference! The only problem then was watching the battery life as it was supposed to be plugged into a 12V supply. I switched it off on the long journey stretches and turned it on again coming into the cities, that did work but it died on a few occasions when we really did need it!

We could have used the iPhone maps function as this is a good quality mapping app on the phone. But! Roaming data is very expensive while overseas and the cost of doing this would have been prohibitive. The few times I did need it in desperation, and turned it on cost me dearly. Whereas once you bought the GPS data was free! I have a $310 Vodafone bill for this month. Not big by some peoples standards but it is by mine. Perhaps one of the hidden cost of travel?

BlueTooth - This was for in our helmets so we could talk to each other. We had this  set up before we got to the USA and it was invaluable. I lost count of the number of times it got Nev and I out of trouble particularly with the interstate and freeway intersections. Only having the one GPS, I was relaying the directions to Nev if he was in front and just letting him know where I was going when he was following. Also if we ended up taking the wrong exit off the motorway or missed a green traffic light we could stay in touch, so not lots of stopping and trying to talk over the noise of the bikes and traffic. The blue tooth unit had a range of 1 kilometre (roughly line of sight), which was good. We certainly stretched it's capabilities on more than one occasion. These were a good quality unit although Nev was a bit miffed when his little aerial cover fell off! Mr Mciver ended up fashioning one out of a hotel pen. 

iPhone/iPad - Well Smart Phones a! Where would we be without them? The iPhone could have well been on top of the list if I was in NZ and using my usual data for my plan. But as mentioned the cost is prohibitive when on 'roaming'. I know I could have bought a temp USA card and used their local telcos but there is still a significant cost involved with this and it would have meant swapping the SIM cards over all the time to check for messages and texts. We used WIFI where ever we could and there was only one cafe that refused us. I used the camera on my iPhone more than I used Pinkie (yes I have a wee pink camera called Pinkie everyone!). The photos I took on my iPhone went to my iCloud to the iPad so that I could load them into my blog!

Well that didn't work. NB - If I had known that iPads not having or using 'Flash' would have effected the ability to upload stuff to the web I may well have bought a Tablet which does have Flash. Anyway such is life, the iPad does have some other good features.

Phone calls were still made and texts sent and received, albeit a bit more expensively but where it really paid off was using the apps that make accommodation so easy.  TripAdvisor is the main App that we used and it is a free App to boot. We trusted the star ratings out of 5 because they were rated by people like you and me, just ordinary travellers. Not travel professionals or the hotels themselves, just you and me. We used to read the reviews and see how many 'Excellents' there were or how many 'Terribles' there were. After a while you picked up a 'feel' for the place and with TA's help you made informed choices. We didn't get it wrong which is great. The one place that were disappointed in was the motel at Twenty Nine Palms, which we didn't make on TripAdvisor! You can also search on how much you are prepared to pay. We also used it for places to eat and sights to see. Peoples honest opinions were a great guide.

I wrote a couple of reviews with places that I felt strongly enough to say something about, (for the good). The more people that give reviews the more accurate the App becomes.

Such a good app and it is world wide so I fully intend using it in New Zealand & Australia. Only one annoying thing, the iPhone TripAdvisor App showed the prices in English pounds while the iPad showed the prices in US dollars? I couldn't find a way of adjusting this?  Go figure!

Still on the iPhone/iPad, the other function we used with gay abandon was of course maps. This was invaluable when sorting out our next route for the following day. We only did this while using WIFI, (which is why we appeared to spend so much time at MacDonald's and Starbucks, coffee had nothing to do with it. So handy when working out mileages and travel times. Something a normal map would do also but would take you so much longer and would not be as accurate.

Yet still on iPhone/iPad advantages was of course Facebook which was handy for uploading photos too because I couldn't do it onto the blog because of Mr Apples reluctance to make it so. Also my wee conversion program for mileage/kilometres, time zones times for local time, (remember our time was always changing across the states so it was hard to keep track when you're so mobile), temperature from Fahrenheit/Celsius, gallons/litres and quite importantly currency. Always handy to convert US dollars back to New Zealand dollars to find out what the true cost of things really were. NB - With the exception of food and petrol there weren't a lot of bargins to be had. When you converted items they were in fact quite similar to NZ prices.

So there you have it. My humble opinions on travel (on motorbikes) in the USA. Rightly or wrongly, it is how I saw the USA.

For all of you who persevered with reading the blog, thank you. I was writing it in the end as much for me as you as it will serve as a great reminder of a great trip!

Nearly 4,000 miles or 6,450 kilomotres in distance.

No accidents except when the universe conspired against Nev.

Only one afternoon that we had to wear wet weather gear.

Nev & I are still talking to each other at the end of the trip.

Would we do another one?

In the blink of an eye!