Kate Russell’s Tech Traveller

Social photo sharing

It’s never been easier to share your photos, from weddings to weekends away, with family and friends. Here’s how...

Every day, an epic 250 million photos are uploaded to Facebook. That’s a pretty stunning number, illustrating how easy it is to share digital photographs. Facebook recently snapped up Instagram — a popular free photo-sharing app (Android and iPhone) that lets you apply retro filters to pics. Not forgetting non-smartphone customers, Facebook also added similar photo-editing features to its Facebook for Every Phone app. If you prefer to socialise in 140 characters or less, you’ll like Twitter’s Twitpic iPhone app, which sports a glossy new set of filters, similar to Instagram’s offering. For the purists, Path is a network for Android and iPhone enabling you to build a ‘path’ through your life with photos, soundbites and location data. Think Facebook Timelines without the clutter.

But what about keeping up with other people? Pixable links to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and pulls out friends’ posts with photos attached, providing a neat and stylish way to browse their holiday snaps without having to search your social feeds every day. www.facebook.com/f4ep  http://twitpic.com  www.path.com  www.pixable.com 


Online traveller: Friendly advice

Need a little extra help while overseas — a route plan, perhaps, or some advice from your Facebook circle? This trio of sites will come to your rescue

http://apps.facebook.com/gekko
Popular travel recommendation and bookings website Gekko.com has just added a Facebook app. It’s the perfect coupling: Gekko’s long-established discounts, deals and listings enhanced by comments and recommendations from your social circle. You can even contact a venue to see if it will tailor-make a deal for you and your Facebook chums.

www.rome2rio.com
Experienced travellers know the most obvious route isn’t always the best. Rome2Rio is a new travel site serving up a range of different route options for travelling from A to B, using all means of available travel, including plane, train, ferry, bus, car and legs. As useful as that is, though, the site goes even further by allowing you to compare the cost of the different journeys and providing a link to buy tickets.

www.historvius.com
Catch all the sights while you’re on your travels with Historvius, a travel directory that integrates maps and social media so you can find, plan a visit to, and rate all the best historic sites in your destination. Search by location, historic era or even historic figure. It’s also recently launched a social game, encouraging users to upload more information and photographs in return for building an ‘empire’ in the cyber world.


WE LOVE...

www.tripomatic.com Plan your perfect trip in over 400 cities with this easy-to-use travel planner. It suggests sites and things to do in the surrounding area — a one-day walking tour of London’s historic landmarks, for example — and allows you to create a daily itinerary with maps and directions.


Four of the best travel lifesavers

Trapster
Planning a road trip? Then avoid nasty surprises en route by downloading Trapster, which alerts you to traffic lights, speed cameras, accidents and other roadway hazards. All formats. Free. www.trapster.com

Valk
If jumbos give you the jitters, this app aims to relax you before and during a flight by giving the lowdown on air safety, along with audio exercises and other stress-busting aids. iPhone, Android. $3.99 (£2.50). www.valk.org

HearPlanet
Turn Wikipedia into your personal guide with HearPlanet — an app that reads out the online encyclopedia’s pages for more than 300,000 global sites. Android, iPhone. $2.99 (£1.90) . www.hearplanet.com

Ticketmaster UK
Ticketmaster’s clever new app recommends gigs and events based on a scan of your iTunes collection. It also includes full event listings and the ability to buy tickets. iPhone. Free. www.ticketmaster.co.uk

Published in the September 2012 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK)