Lonely Planet interactive travel books arrive in the iBooks store

As the e-book market starts becoming more mainstream, some electronic titles are beginning to outsell their paper versions. Because of these rapid developments, traditional paper publishers are quickly developing e-versions of their popular publications.

Lonely Planet, one of the biggest names in travel publishing just released their first five e-books to the Apple iBooks store. Their Discover guides are available for Great Britain, Italy, Spain, France and Ireland. Unlike some static e-books, the Lonely Planet Discover guides have been completely recreated with a variety of interactive features. The guides offer over 3000 hyperlinks, detailed maps, bookmark, note and highlight options as well as hundreds of images.

Of course, you’ll need an iPad to enjoy the guide, and walking down the streets of Paris while staring at your iPad may not be the best idea, but it should make pre-planning and planning from your hotel room much easier. Best of all, because the content is stored locally, you won’t burn through expensive international cellular data or WiFi to access information.

I’ve taken their guide for a spin, and feel that it is pretty safe to say that this is the future of the travel guide. The Discover Guides can be found in the Apple iBooks store accessible on your device.

Lonely Planet volcano relief – free European iPhone city guides!

Stranded in Europe due to volcanic ash? How about getting to know your host city a little better with the help of a Lonely Planet city guide? The guides normally cost $9.99, but Lonely Planet has graciously turned them into free apps until Thursday.

The lineup of apps covers most major European cities, and a list of the cities included (with App store links) can be found on the Lonely Planet blog.

Of course, nothing is stopping you from downloading the apps if you are not stranded, but be nice to Lonely Planet and snag one of their paid apps as well – they are good people, and the quality of these free guides is quite impressive.

This isn’t even the only bit of goodwill from Lonely Planet – they have also opened up a discussion forum where stranded travelers can find some assistance. To find a bed, car for share or anything else – head on over to the Volcano Refugee Network.

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Nokia Green Explorer — discover a new way to be an eco-friendly traveler

During my visit to the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show, I came across an interesting eco-friendly product from mobile phone maker Nokia. Their “Green Explorer” site is part destination guide, part eco-friendly guide, and part mobile guide service. The site covers all continents, and offers content from Lonely Planet, the WWF, UNESCO, routeRANK and TripSketch.

The end result of these 5 companies working together is a single “portal” of eco-friendly travel information, user submitted guides and photo galleries of each destination. The guides cover the basic things you’d expect, but adds information like the UNESCO world heritage locations, WWF eco facts and a green trip planner which allows you to calculate the most eco-friendly way to get there.

Because the site is part of the Nokia OVI labs, you can even tag locations and routes, and save them to your Nokia phone. Combined with the recently announced free navigation service and Lonely Planet guides from Nokia, you can turn your phone into an eco-friendly GPS unit. Add the Nokia CO2 offset application and you can create a pretty impressive green travel companion.

The user submitted content on the Green Explorer site is pretty limited, but the site is still quite new (and in beta phase). Once more people start adding their own content, the Nokia Green Explorer has the potential to turn into something very impressive.

Fake Canadians go home

I’m as mad as a polar bear reading about global warming. Everywhere I look I see Canadian flags on backpacks. A maple leaf seems to be as important an item of budget travel gear as daddy’s credit card, but there’s one problem–many of the people flashing the good old red, white, and red aren’t Canadian.

I am.

I’ve taken to asking people their nationality when I see them sporting a Canadian flag and only about half turn out to be Canadian. The other half are American. No Brits, no Aussies, no Latvians. It seems the fake Canadians all come from south of the border.

Are they illegal immigrants coming to steal our heath care and eat all our maple syrup? No, they’re pretending to be Canadians because their guidebooks have told them they’ll be safer in all those scary foreign countries. Americans are targets, the guidebooks warn, so it’s best to lay low. Lonely Planet started this ridiculous trend, but I’ve spotted the advice in other guidebooks too. It’s stupid, and here’s why.

First off, it’s hypocritical. I’ve seen these sunshine patriots screech with rage when anyone says anything the least bit negative about the U.S., but they’ll gladly give up their identity on the advice of some random guidebook writer. If you’re proud to be American, that’s great, the U.S. has a lot going for it, but then show you’re proud by wearing an AMERICAN flag.
Secondly, the idea that a Canadian flag will protect you overseas is simply untrue. Thieves see you as a rich Westerner, and don’t care whether you come from Manitoba or Montana. Terrorists see you as an evil Westerner, and don’t care either. Some of the biggest attacks against travelers have been against British and Germans, not Americans. Besides, while the Canadian flag is a glorious national emblem, sublime in its simplicity and beauty, it is not bomb proof. Suicide attacks don’t discriminate and usually take out more locals than foreigners.

Thirdly, Americans aren’t as hated as they think. Oh, there are the jokes about fat, ignorant Americans that unite the world from Egypt to Ecuador, but few people really mean Americans any harm. I know, because I am regularly mistaken for one. When I worked and traveled for a couple of years in the Middle East, nobody threatened me. I even witnessed the 14th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Isfahan, Iran, and didn’t have a problem. In fact, the entire month I was in Iran people constantly assumed I was American (or British, equally bad according to government propaganda) but I was never threatened. Instead I was treated to embarrassing levels of hospitality and the only danger was the very real possibility of being fed to death on massive dinners and cloyingly sweet desserts. The Iranians, it seems, can distinguish between people and governments. Oh, I occasionally had to endure odious lectures on the evils of Israel or how Zionists run Washington (snore) but I was never treated to even so much as a harsh word. It was the same in Palestine, Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and Turkey.

So Americans, please, show some love for your country and wear your own flag. The world doesn’t hate you as much as you think it does. But I wouldn’t suggest wearing a t-shirt saying “Employee of the U.S. Government”. That’s what most people are really ticked off about.

And if you are truly that embarrassed by your own country, I suggest one of two things–either stay home and work on fixing it, or move to Canada. We’re underpopulated, so there’s plenty of room.

Sunglasses that Protect: A Must Have

When gathering your traveling gear, don’t forget your eyes. There’s many a time I’ve stopped in a drug store or a gas station to buy a pair of sunglasses because I forgot mine at home. Actually, I break and lose sunglasses regularly. The latest mishap was my dog chewed one pair beyond redemption. Luckily, spending a lot of money on sunglasses isn’t necessary to protect your eyes. It is necessary to protect your eyes, though. Cataracts and macular degeneration (decreases sharp vision by changing the retina) are caused by sun damage, for example.

Here’s what is recommended for the ultimate in sunglasses protection:

  • Glasses that block at least 99 percent of both UV-A and UV-B light. Look on the price tag or the sticker on the lens.
  • Grey, green or brown tints are the best for blocking out visible light.
  • Grey lenses are better for recognizing true colors
  • Check the lens to make sure the color is uniform throughout. Imperfections confuse the pupils and can promote damage.
  • The stems should be the wider kind close to the lense to help block the sun from the sides.
  • Look for lenses that wrap more around your eyes.

For more info, check out the American Optimetric Association web site. The site also mentions if you are a sports type, polycarbonate lenses are a must.

Because I have such bad luck with sunglasses, I tend to buy the cheaper kind. Here are some links to places that offer sunglasses to fit the traveleing lifestyle. After browsing the Lonely Planet Travel Gear and Clothing Store Web site, and Eastern Mountain Sports‘, I may have to change my cheap factor. There are several styles to chose from. Eastern Mountain Sports varieties aren’t so hard on the wallet.