iPhone app finds fun outings at home, on vacay
Need something fun to do this weekend? Whether you're at home or on a trip, A Day's Outing helps you find nearby fairs, museums, nature spots, and much more.
Looking for something fun to do with your family, spouse, or group of friends? Fire up A Day's Outing, a terrific little app that helps you find nearby events and activities.
The start page lets you quickly search for outings based on a variety of criteria, any of which you can change with just a few taps.
For example, by default, the app looks for outings within the next seven days, but you can narrow that down to today, tomorrow, or even next weekend. You can also specify the range and location (nearby, or someplace in particular--like a travel destination).
Search results are presented in a list or map view, which you can switch between at will. The list view displays tabs along the side so you can filter the results by category: Family & Children, Parks & Gardens, Farms, Food & Wine, and so on.
When you tap any listing, you get the distance from your location, an address and phone number, and a description. The app lets you tag any event as a favorite, get turn-by-turn driving directions (within the app, instead of dumping you out to Google Maps), and share the outing via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, and just about every other social-media service.
I really liked the app's whimsical, Rockwell-esque interface, though I did have trouble getting the search feature to work--it kept producing error messages when I tried to look up renaissance festivals.
That hopefully temporary bug aside, A Day's Outing is a little gem. It's great for finding events and activities in your neck of the woods, and even better for finding them when you're traveling. Definitely worth the $2.99 price of admission--though I should mention that the Day's Outing Web site offers the same great data for free.