Spring break is just around the corner, and if you haven’t already planned a trip, our friends at Expedia have mined their price stats to come up with some of the most budget-friendly locations around. From family-friendly to party-hearty, these trips won’t break the bank.
Tampa, Florida
Home of the New York Yankees’ spring training camp, this sunny destination has much to offer both families and singles. A four-day, round-trip flight from New York into Tampa starts at $180.
San Juan, Puerto Rico
If you’re looking to brush up on your Spanish, check out Puerto Rico’s capital city, San Juan. A five-day, round-trip flight starts at $279 and with average lows hovering around 73° in April, San Juan is sure to please. This popular destination has made one of the most coveted travel spots this year, and new hotels make this an exciting spot for luxury and budget seekers alike.
San Diego, California
This sunny city is an increasingly popular Spring Break destination. For stays between March 8-16, there are a number of package deals available (flight + hotel) for less than $800/person on Expedia. For $772/person, you can stay at the beautiful Dana on Mission Bay between March 9-16 with travel from New York.
Orlando, Florida
Whether you’re headed to Disney World or just seeking fun in the sun, it’s possible to find flights AND hotels for under $300 total when traveling from New York City.
Travel-booking service Orbitz had released an update to their popular iOS app, bringing full iPad optimization to Apple’s tablet for the first time. The new version of the app now runs at the iPad’s native screen resolution and taps into the device’s more powerful processor to provide faster search results to consumers. The app also presents users with special mobile-only discounts that aren’t available through the company’s traditional web portal.
Much like the former iPhone-only version, the new app lets users find and book discounted flights, hotel rooms and rental cars. The search results are then displayed on the larger iPad screen allowing travelers to compare the details of different flight options or view hotels in both a list and map view. These features help make the search process much easier and simply aren’t possible on the smaller screen of a smartphone.
Streamlined searching of travel options isn’t the only thing the app brings to the table. It also allows travelers to save their itineraries for offline viewing and even adds important dates and times to the iPad’s built-in calendar. Additionally, it will provide updated information on flight delays or gate changes and grants access to exclusive deals for hotel rooms, often at as much as 50 percent off the normal price.
In celebration of the release of the new iPad app, Orbitz is giving away a trip for two to Chicago. The contest winner will receive first-class, round-trip airfare and two nights stay at the swanky Peninsula Chicago hotel. To enter to win, just visit the Orbitz Facebook page.
Have a friend in Austria while you are in Austin and want to take a trip together this summer? How do you figure out where to meet? Do you choose a destination in the middle, or one with regular cheap flights from both of your destinations? A new website just launched in beta, designed to make planning group travel an easier process. TripCommon is a flight search engine that computes the cheapest common destinations, giving you the option to filter by region (maybe you’ve both always wanted to explore South America), activity (make it a beach trip), and where you have local friends (if you link up to Facebook).
What makes TripCommon genius is that it doesn’t just find random points on the map that are midway between you and your friends (you can enter up to six cities for big group travel planning), it finds destinations that have the lowest average price. Maybe you are in grad school and have a fixed budget; you can find places with the lowest cost from your city. If you have frequent flier miles to burn and your friends are the ones looking for the cheapest seats, you can sort by lowest price from one of their home cities. You may discover destinations you never thought about (Canary Islands sound nice for summer!), and make the trip planning process a lot more equitable.
There is nothing more frustrating than having to seek medical assistance while traveling. It is bad enough to have something unexpected come up while you’re at home, but at least your personal doctor is generally only a phone call away. But while you’re on the road it can be difficult to find a specialist and booking an appointment can be a real challenge.
That’s where ZocDoc can come in very handy. The service, which is available on both the web and as an Android and iOS app, allows users to quickly and easily find doctors, dentists and other specialists based on location. The website version of ZocDoc searches based on zip code while the mobile apps use the smartphone’s built in GPS chip to locate options that are near by. Searches can be narrowed by looking for specific specialties (allergist, cardiologist, orthodontist, etc.) and you can even add a search criteria based on the insurance provider you’ll be using.
When the search is complete, ZocDoc presents all the available options in a clean and easy to read format that includes addresses, reviews and a listing of the next available appointment. Tapping or clicking on an open date and time allows the user to then quickly and easily book that appointment.
Putting ZocDoc through its paces, I was impressed with just how simple the interface was both on the website and the iPhone app. It really is very easy to use the service to locate a doctor. Booking an appointment couldn’t have been any easier either and the whole process took just a minute or two to complete.
For now, ZocDoc only works in the U.S. but for travelers who frequently move about the country, this could be an incredibly useful app. If you find yourself frequently on the road and occasionally needing medical assistance of some type, this service will come in very hand. While not expressly built for travelers, it certainly is a resource that we’ll all be happy to have if we ever need it.
One of the more interesting products currently in development at Google is a high-tech, wearable gadget known as Google Glass. In a nutshell, when worn like a typical pair of glasses, the device suspends a small LCD screen in your peripheral vision. When paired with a smartphone via BlueTooth, Glass is capable of displaying a variety of information without the user ever taking the phone out of their purse or pocket. Until recently, just exactly what information Glass could display, and what it would look like, remained a bit of a mystery. But earlier this week, Google released a video showing off the gadgets capabilities, some of which will come in very handy for travelers.
In the video, which you’ll find after the jump, you’ll see Google Glass helping someone navigate through a city, which is of course something we can all appreciate when visiting a new destination. Imagine simply asking the device to help you find a cafe, museum or other point of interest and then have it not only show you results, but also give you turn-by-turn navigation with visual prompts right on its tiny screen. That’s something that would certainly come in handy when navigating the congested streets of Paris or Rome.
But navigation is just the tip of the iceberg. The video also shows a user asking for a language translation and then quickly being provided the word that he requested. I think we would all agree that translation would be extremely helpful when visiting many foreign locales. It is easy to see future versions of Glass also being able to listen to and automatically translate full conversations in real-time or even providing written translations of signs, menus and banners too.Google Glass will come with a built-in camera, allowing the users to take still photos or video from their travels by simple issuing a voice command. Those images and videos can then be shared with friends and family via Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. The device has the potential to become the GoPro camera for the non-action sport crowd too, capturing all kinds of POV experiences from our travels.
Being location-aware, future iterations of the device could potentially allow users to leave augmented-reality notes for one another providing clues and suggestions on where to eat or stay while in a certain area. Then, as the user moves through those locations, he or she would see those notes appear on their screen as they pass by. The notes could include Yelp reviews, money-saving tips, hours of operation and a host of other information.
Google Glass is only currently available to app developers and beta testers, but Google is expected to bring it to market next year. The pre-production models run $1500 but that is expected to drop substantially when the consumer version becomes available sometime in 2014. Of course, we’ll also need to have a compatible smartphone (count on Android and probably iOS support) and a good data connection to make it all work. But the potential is there for a great product that can benefit travelers in many ways.
Now if they can just find a way to make them a bit more stylish.