On the road? Here are 6 apps to make miles fly by
TEXARKANA, Ark. — If you’re hitting the road this summer you should investigate packing these apps to liven things up along the way. You might even learn something.
Discover the quirky
Consult Roadside America’s database of offbeat tourist attractions, and you could marvel at a giant map of Chicago painted on a skyscraper or visit the post office that straddles Texarkana, Ark., and Texarkana, Texas.
The iPhone app costs $3 and lets you unlock one geographic “region” out of seven across the U.S. and Canada. Pay $2 apiece for more, or an additional $6 for all of them — a better deal if you travel a lot.
A companion iPhone app, Roadside Presidents, focuses on birthplaces, graves and other sites related to the nation’s commanders in chief. There’s Mount Rushmore, of course, but the $3 app can also lead you to the New York site where George Washington took the presidential oath or an eatery Barack Obama visited in Boulder, Colo.
Learn something
As you make your way across the U.S., History Here, produced by the History Channel, will alert you about nearby places where interesting things happened.
That can be serious, such as the Rodney King trial in Simi Valley, Calif., which led to rioting in Los Angeles after the acquittal of four white police officers charged with beating the black motorist. For something lighter, howabout the New York apartment where baseball legend Mickey Mantle lived?
The free app sends location-notifications to iPhones and Apple Watch. There’s an app for Android, but you must open it to see what’s nearby.
Are they here yet? Are they here yet?
Folks you’re visiting can track you with Glympse for iPhones, Android and Windows phones. The free app sends your friend or relative a Weblink to track your whereabouts. That person doesn’t need the app.
The iPhone’s Find My Friends feature does something similar, but sharing is continuous. Glympse lets you choose with whom and when to share, and for how long.
The slower way there
The quickest route isn’t always the best, something mapping apps don’t understand. For scenic drives, visit http://myscenicdrives.com. There’s no app, but you can use this free service on Windows and BlackBerry phones as well as more common iPhones and Androids.
Distracting the kids
Search the app store, and you’ll find lots of apps devoted to classic road trip games, such as who can find the most out-of-state license plates. The $2 Family Car Games app for iPhones gives you more than a hundred options searchable by difficulty level and categories, such as singing.
Most of the games aren’t directly related to travel but will help pass the time until your next rest stop.
The nice thing is these games aren’t meant to be played on your phone. Once you look up a game, youcan put the phone away and just hang with your travel companions.
Where in the world are we?
The GeoGuessr app isn’t so helpful while traveling, but it’s great for seeing what you’ve observed and discovered along theway. It shows you a Google Street View image of some location in the world. You then navigate for clues from road signs or vegetation, then guess where you are. Play alone or challenge friends.
The iPhone app is free, but make sure you don’t spell it “GeoGuesser,” or you’ll get a similar game that costs$2. Youcan pay to focus the game on specific countries or cities. To avoid paying or to use other phones, visit http://geo guessr.com.
Warning: GeoGuessr is addictive, especially on a lazy Sunday afternoon at the bar.