PDA Women / The World in the Palm of My Hand
by Carrie McKenzie
It was about 10 PM when I stepped onto the vaporetto that carried me into fabled Venice. As I leaned against the wooden balustrade my senses were filled with the beauty of La Serenissima. Lights twinkled upon the waters of Canale Grande as we sailed our way to the stop at Piazza San Marco. Stepping out of the boat, I grabbed my traveling companion's arm.
"Can you believe we're finally here?" "No," she replied, "I can't! Now, where did Rick Steeves' book say we should go for cappuccino?" I pulled out my trusty Palm, hit the memo button and pulled up my memo entries on Venice. Choosing the entry for "Food and Drink", I consulted notes I had made before leaving the US.
"Rick says we should head for music and cappuccino at Café Florian, the oldest Café on the Piazza that Napoleon once called 'the finest drawing room in Europe'." I said. "We should head into the Piazza and turn left... it should be right there." "Awesome! Let's go!" said my friend, and off we went, into the magic of this incredible Italian city by moonlight.
Last summer, I was privileged to go to Europe for the first time. It was a pleasure trip, seventeen days touring with my choir. I carefully researched my destinations, bought a couple of Rick Steeves' travel guides, and visited the travel accessory section of my favorite discount chain. I found some handy gadgets to take along, but the most useful thing I took was my Palm and the travel kit I'd bought for it!
In this article I'd like to share just how my Palm handheld made this European trip of a lifetime easier. I'll show you how built-in apps and third party additions served to simplify many aspects of my expedition.
Entertainment -- I took a bus to Chicago, then flew to Amsterdam, and from there to Vienna. Not being much of a plane sleeper, and wanting to get my body clock on European time ASAP, I used my Palm to while away the many hours of travel. Before I left, I downloaded a bunch of books I found at MemoWare at no cost. In one tiny package had a lot of reading material.
I also loaded up on games, from the Giraffe to Backgammon, and many others. I packed so much into the Palm that it kept me busy during most of our down time, both during the trip there and as we moved from place to place.
http://www.palm.com/support/downloads/3csoftware.html
http://www.palmgamingworld.com/board/backgammon.shtml
Travel Journal -- Who needs a fancy book and pen when you have a Palm? Rather than lug another thing with me, I used Graffiti to record my thoughts and fancies in the Palm using the Memo Pad. This made it very easy to take notes and to find my thoughts later using the search feature. I cross referenced them by using the same categories I used for my pre-trip planning notes, then used date and time stamp shortcuts to keep my diary accurate.
Currency converter -- Now, I don't subscribe to Palm.net, nor do I use my wireless phone to synch my Palm. If I did, I would have been able to update currency rates daily using my GSM cell phone (which works in the US and overseas) and my Palm. But I wasn't worried about converting right down to the penny (or Lira). I simply downloaded E-Z Currency Converter, updated it the morning I left, and successfully estimated currencies all trip long.
http://www.kimkc.per.sg/currencyconvertor/
I loaded the currencies for Italy and Austria, but in hindsight I wish I'd added the Netherlands, as a missed flight there which gave me an unexpected afternoon in Amsterdam. (Note to self: download info on all the places you'll be, not just your destinations!)
In Schoenbrun Palace in Vienna, I found a lovely music box with a Lippizan horse on it for my pony-mad daughter back home. I just typed in the price, hit convert, and found that yes, it was in my budget! In Florence, I found a gorgeous necklace with huge chunks of amethyst and tourmaline -- was 100,000 Lira a good value? Once I found out it was only about $42, I bought the matching earrings as well. And how good of a deal was the 28,000 Lira three course menu turistica at the sidewalk cafe in Siena? Well, for less than $12, I have never had a better or more filling meal!
Distance converter -- I'm afraid I didn't retain much from lessons I had in grade school on standard to metric conversion. So for me, a utility like Convert-It was a godsend! I'd see a road sign, like "Venezia, 16 km", then use Convert-It to tell me we were less than ten miles away. Ditto on quarter liters of wine sold at truck stops. European travel is so civilized!
http://www.pe.net/firm/dpw-designs/products/cvt_it/cvt_it.html
Translator -- I loaded True Term's English German and English Italian (and vice versa) dictionaries into my Palm and took advantage of the easy look up feature to talk my way through the tour.
At our hotel in Montecatini Terme, it was invaluable in asking for a deck of cards with which to join my friend's double solitaire game, and thus I spent one of many fun nights on the trip, just playing cards by the pool under the lemon and lime trees. Again in hindsight, I wish I had downloaded the Dutch dictionary as well!
Address book -- How obvious is this one? Very, but it was a good thing to have along to get all those postcards mailed to the right places!
Tour guide -- Huh? How can a Palm be a tour guide? Well, I told you I bought a couple of Rick Steeves' guides. Using them, I plotted out several places in each city that I wanted to visit, along with their address, telephone number, and the book title and page number I found them on. No thumbing through the guide book needed. Another valuable service brought to me by my Palm's Memo Pad.
Alarm Clock -- How I hate hotel wake up calls! Fumbling in the dark for the phone, all bleary-eyed and disoriented. I set my Palm's Datebook to wake me when I needed to get going -- avoiding a wake up call and keeping me on time. I also used the alarm to remind me when I was to meet someone.
World Time Converter -- Okay, I'll admit, I did call home at a very rude time once, but only once! After that I thought to check my Palm and CityTime to see what time it was at home before I called. This made the folks back home much happier and saved me money, as I only called when I was likely to find them rather than the answering machine.
http://www.codecity.net/prodctpalm.html
Conclusion -- I probably used the Palm in many more ways while I was gone, but these were the really outstanding uses for me. I know that plenty of people travel with their Palms for business, but I never thought it could be so useful on a pleasure trip as well. I can hardly wait to get my Palm geared up for another trip!!
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Carrie McKenzie is a sales manager with VoiceStream Wireless, global wireless by T Mobile. She is married, with three children, and dreams of being a travel writer. In her next life she will be a Venetian.
Originally appeared in Palm Tipsheet 32, July 2002.