trip

CNET Road Trip Europe: Planes, trains, and automobiles

When I was in my twenties, the idea of a summer in Europe meant a big backpack, a Eurail Pass, a small budget, and a lot of freedom.

I'm not in my twenties anymore, but I've just flown across the pond to begin Road Trip 2011, my sixth annual tour of a specific area of the global map in search of stories, photos, and videos about some of the best geek-oriented destinations I can find.

And this summer, after previous journeys around five regions of the United States, my travels have taken me to Europe. But despite countless … Read more

Help Road Trip conquer Paris

In just three weeks, I'll be starting Road Trip 2011, and this year it's all about Europe.

This will be my sixth-annual journey in search of some of the best destinations around for technology, military, architecture, science, nature, and so on.

In past years, Road Trip has been all over the U.S. I've had the opportunity to visit the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest, the Southeast, the Rocky Mountain region, and the Northeast.

But this year, for the first time, Road Trip is heading across the pond to Europe.

Already, I've already got a long list … Read more

RoadAhead: Savior of the long-distance driver?

You're driving to Grandma's house. You've got 200 miles to go. In the car with you: a fatigued spouse, two kids at each other's throats, and a slobbering Labrador Retriever with a full bladder. You're hungry, the gas tank is nearly empty, and you want to get off the road for dinner. Where do you stop?

Traditional roadside placards and billboards might tell you what's next on your route. Some GPS units and apps will show you what's beyond that as well. But nothing I've seen yet is as dialed in to the road-tripper's dilemma as a new app launching today: RoadAhead.

RoadAhead is a smartphone app (iPhone only so far: iTunes link) that can tell you which exit to take when you're on the move and looking for a certain combination of services. Say you want a sit-down dinner, gas, and a playground. You can select just that combination, and the app will show you which of those services are at each exit ahead of you. It will rank services based on how well they fit in with your direction of travel--if possible, it won't route you across a freeway or far off the beaten path.

Most importantly, it won't ever show you attractions or services that are behind you. Because we don't double back, kids. If you wanted to go to Burger King, you should have told me 30 miles ago.

RoadAhead founder Jeffrey Beir (formerly of North Bridge Venture Partners, Xerox, Lotus, and his own start-up, eRoom) tells me the technical challenge to building this app was not trivial. A proprietary database takes available map and business data and enables the app to route based on direction of travel. "It's a tough algorithm," he says.… Read more

Rand McNally GPS for the Winnebago crowd

Summer is coming. Thousands of lumbering behemoths will soon take to the roads, loaded with families or retirees. These RVs are misunderstood creatures. They may clog up the highways and decorate Wal-Mart parking lots, but they have needs just like other vehicles. RVs need GPS love, too.

Rand McNally is courting the RV community with a new GPS device designed just for them. The TripMaker RVND 5510 sports a name that's almost as long as an actual Winnebago. It comes stocked up with information that would make a regular car driver's head spin.… Read more

TripAdvisor app gets trippy with AR feature

The TripAdvisor app for the iPad 2, iPhone, and iPod Touch added a new feature this week, introducing a touch of "augmented reality" via the devices' cameras.

Live View lets travelers explore the travel site's more than 45 million user reviews of restaurants, attractions, hotels, and such superimposed over what app users see through the mobile device's camera.

As its designers describe "...if a traveler is standing outside a restaurant, they can simply point their mobile device's camera at it and TripAdvisor ratings and reviews of that establishment will automatically be displayed on the screen."

I tried it out after downloading the update from the App Store and discovered a poorly reviewed nail salon and Thai massage joint near me here in Los Angeles that might be a seedy brothel. I doubt that's what the app designers had in mind for most travelers to discover, but all the bangs and whistles work. … Read more

Cadillac Ranch: Texas-size lawn ornaments

TULSA, Okla.--Welcome to the second installment of the Geek's guide to Route 66. I've been giving a lot of thought to how this iconic highway ties in with CNET's Crave blog, and I keep coming back to the second part of our mission statement--that bit about "other crushworthy stuff." Well, I'm totally crushing on the kitschy paean to big American cars that is the Cadillac Ranch.

Located just outside Amarillo, Tex., the Cadillac Ranch features 10 classic Caddys buried nose into the ground and fins to the sky in the middle of a field. The cars are covered in thick layers of colorful graffiti. Visitors come from around the world to ogle this very American version of Stonehenge and add their names to the ever-evolving art project.

Usually, I grab a discarded paint can and add my own message. Today, however, gale force winds removed all of the debris from the area and made it hard to even stand up against the massive force. Perhaps on my way back I'll be able to tag "Crave wuz here" across a protruding fin. In the meantime, I'm still picking little bits of Texas out of my teeth and hair.

How does the Cadillac Ranch tie in with tech? You can talk about cars as one of the most impactful inventions ever created. You can sit back and muse about what the Cadillac Ranch says about our culture, our obsession with the road, and how that obsession sometimes leads to being stalled out, nose down in a field while the winds and plants continue on around you. … Read more

Geek's guide to Route 66, part 1

It's packing time. A jumble of tech gadgets will be my road companions as I head out on the highway, looking for adventure, and whatever comes my way. Beginning tomorrow, I'll be traveling in my Toyota Prius from Albuquerque, N.M., to Chicago on Route 66, with a side trip to Carbondale, Ill.

Route 66 screams retro. It whispers Elvis' name. It reflects long, chrome-laden cars and poodle skirts at the local drive-in. It comes from a land before cell phones. That might make some high-tech gadget hounds feel a little out of place, but I've always been happy to park my Prius right behind my 1956 DeSoto and call it harmony.

I'm taking a small pile of gadgets to get me through. Notably, I'm going to attempt to navigate, work, book hotels, shoot video, and amuse myself with a 32GB iPad 2 with Verizon 3G. I was going to leave my cranky old Asus Netbook at home, but it's coming with me because I'm worried about running into limitations with the iPad 2. I'll let you know after I get back if that turns out to be the case.… Read more

Expedia to split into two companies

Expedia is splitting into two companies, Expedia and TripAdvisor, the travel firm announced today.

Under its Expedia brand, the company will conduct both domestic and international operations through Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Hotwire, and others. The second company, TripAdvisor, will be made up of TripAdvisor.com, as well as "18 other travel media and advertising brands." Both entities will be publicly traded.

TripAdvisor was acquired by InterActive Corporation (IAC) in 2004. It spun off under the Expedia name in 2005. Since then, Expedia has been performing relatively well. In 2009, the company generated a profit of more than $… Read more

At Hacker Dojo, Silicon Valley techies build toward success

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Every day around 10 a.m., the five employees of YourVersion show up for work. Since hackers tend not to be early risers, their favorite workspace is usually still available.

As a former TechCrunch 50 People's Choice winner, you'd think that the company would be well ensconced in plush Silicon Valley offices. But YourVersion, a personalized content aggregation service, is into "extreme bootstrapping," said its CEO Dan Olsen. So rather than blow thousands of dollars each month on rent, he and his team gather here each morning in a funky industrial building with … Read more