24/7 Data Access

Travelling DIY is much easier when I have 24/7 internet connection. This is because I relied on technology to make my travelling smooth. The applications that I frequently used while travelling are:

  1. google map for seaching destinations on the fly
  2. weather forcast for better planning and making changes
  3. calender schedule for all the important events of the trips
  4. gmail, whatapps, facebook for all my communication with family and friends
  5. google translate to resolve language problems
  6. google drive for all my bookings documents (flight tickets, hotel reservation, car, etc)
  7. news for keeping up to dates
  8. google chrome (browsers) 

One of the fears of travelling DIY is getting lost, this is worsen if language is also a problem. With google map this fear has greatly reduced, as I could always pinpoint my location on the map and plot my route to the next destination. Google map comes with so much details and features,  it will even direct me to the next subway or bus station and give me the estimate ticket costs etc. There were many times after I parked my car I would mark my car location on google map so that I could easily find my car later.

Google translation is also a wonderful DIY travel help. When I came upon words in language that did not understand, I would take a snapshot of the words and sent them for translation into English. This has help me understood road signs and menu item (food) descriptions. There were times I had to communicate with a local, I would either write or speak into google translation in English and had my written or spoken word translated into the local language. Google translation is not a perfect translation tool, it could not translate a sentence absolutely correct, but it do very well for single word translation which is good enough to communicate.

Google chrome (browsers) is also very useful because whenever I need to search for a restaurant, an accommodation, a store, a place of interest I could always depend on the internet for more information about it before pinpointing its exact location on google map. 

These applications work well with data connection, so one of my research items before any DIY trip is always about 24/7 dta connection. It could be a data SIM card or a wireless router, I do not mind paying for it as the convenience and freedom it brings to me are all worth it.