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Connected Travel Thursday / App of the Week: YouVisit

written by Annie Edwards

What Is It?

Let’s go there. And there. Yeah, there too. For those who truly want to go everywhere, sometimes virtual reality is more feasible than dozens of plane tickets. Traveling in VR not only eliminates, language barriers and visa fees…there’s very little chance you’ll ever miss your flight.

There are two reasons travelers put on a VR headset: to plan and to escape. Maybe you use YouVisit to teleport to Cape Town on your lunch break, enjoying the view from Table Mountain. Or maybe you need to choose between visiting NYC and Paris, and a Google Images search simply isn’t a sufficient tiebreaker. Download YouVisit and hatch your escape plan!

How Does It Work?

“But wait,” you say, “I don’t own a VR headset!” Not a problem. While the experience is certainly optimized by using an actual headset, YouVisit also works as a 360-degree video on desktop and smartphones. A compromised approach would be to get a Google Cardboard viewer, which turns nearly any phone into a VR headset for only $15. We definitely recommend using high-quality headphones for a more immersive experience. And while this might sound obvious, don’t forget to look around and use the controller to interact with the environment.

youvisit VR

YouVisit’s 360-degree destinations—from Alaska to Tel Aviv—are certainly inspiring, as it would be wonderful to travel to the globe’s every nook and cranny. But if your budget and timeframe are more “spring break” than “sabbatical,” tough choices must be made. Given the time and resources you’re investing in a trip, a little virtual research will help you choose the ideal itinerary.

Our Favorite Part

Admit it: an immersive VR experience is better than any travel agent or hotel sales rep. Furthermore, YouVisit highlights the best of the best, making the impossible possible—truly. Hang with lemurs and tigers in YouVisit’s Exotic Kingdom or train for space travel with NASA astronauts.

The point is: VR eliminates all borders and barriers to travel. Anyone can go on a virtual vacation anywhere, anytime. Next time you have a travel itch that needs scratching, simply put on a headset. We won’t claim it’s the same as being there…but it’s pretty darn close.youvisit app

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Annie Edwards
Annie’s based in Los Angeles but hails from Portland, Oregon. Sort of. She moved to six states by the time she reached middle school, and continues to move around the US and abroad – call her a nomad, but she prefers “Location ADHD.” After studying abroad in New Zealand, Annie circled the globe, graduated from USC, and circled the world once again. For one year she lived out of a backpack everywhere from The Philippines to Nepal to Slovenia to Norway. She’s a curry connoisseur and passionate explorer, taking the road less traveled, the “trail” covered in vines and swarmed in exotic bugs. Foreign lands feel like home, and Annie loves encouraging more and more people to utilize their passports and experience a new culture.
04/06/2017 0 comment
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Asana App
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Connected Travel Thursday / App of the Week: Asana

written by Annie Edwards

What Is It?

Travelers accomplish more with Asana. Scratch that—everyone gets more done with Asana. The Asana app, available on desktop and mobile, is a to-do list, a personal assistant, project manager and a sanity-saving best friend all in one.

Asana is key for collaboration and communication, as it connects with all of your favorite office tools to be one uber-useful productivity platform. Whether you’re planning a team presentation or a PTO extravaganza, Asana is handy for identifying priorities, looping in cohorts and powering through piles of tasks.

How Does It Work?

The beauty of the app is that it doesn’t require learning new tricks—it simply helps you make more productive use your current tools. The app integrates with a laundry list of services: Dropbox, Hipchat, Chrome, Google Drive, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Instagantt, Box, OneLogin, Zapier, tray.io, Jotana, Okta, Integromat, Automate.io, HourStack, Sprintboards, Instabug, Everhour, Github, Trello, Zenefits, MailChimp, Unito, Evernote, Velocity and more (seriously, there’s more).

Some highlights for the travel-minded: the Chrome extension is a wonderful research and booking tool, as it lets users save helpful articles for later reading, and assign links to tasks. For example, the “Book Hotel” task may have several hotel option links attached. After booking, save e-receipts and PDFs all in one place via the Dropbox and Google Drive integrations.

Asana is particularly wonderful for three types of travelers: business, groups and travel agents/guides. The common theme here is organized communication. Asana’s tools make it simple to create and stick to a plan.

Asana App

We especially love that it caters to both computer and phone productivity. It’s seamless across all platforms, so the heavy-hitting research and budget allocation tasks can be done on the desktop app, and then accessed later on mobile. On the flip side, users can quickly flag a favorite hotel on their phone and then book it later on their laptop.

Our Favorite Part

Our favorite part is the happily ever after portion: the aspects of Asana that make it simple for everyone on your trip to access detailed memories. Let’s say your trip has a dedicated photographer or writer—or maybe it’s a collaborative effort—and everyone wants everyone else’s creative assets. Share them all on Asana via Dropbox and Google Drive (our preferred file sharing methods, because there aren’t size or quantity limitations). Effectively and simultaneously create a shared content library and create backup files, just in case the original hard drives or SIM cards hit the hay one day.

With the Asana integration, photos and videos can be shared alongside documents, PDFs and web links. Make life a daring adventure through one completed task at a time—Asana helps make anything possible!

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Annie Edwards
Annie’s based in Los Angeles but hails from Portland, Oregon. Sort of. She moved to six states by the time she reached middle school, and continues to move around the US and abroad – call her a nomad, but she prefers “Location ADHD.” After studying abroad in New Zealand, Annie circled the globe, graduated from USC, and circled the world once again. For one year she lived out of a backpack everywhere from The Philippines to Nepal to Slovenia to Norway. She’s a curry connoisseur and passionate explorer, taking the road less traveled, the “trail” covered in vines and swarmed in exotic bugs. Foreign lands feel like home, and Annie loves encouraging more and more people to utilize their passports and experience a new culture.
03/30/2017 0 comment
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Penzu
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Connected Travel Thursday / App of the Week: Penzu

written by Annie Edwards

What Is It?

Penzu is your new journal—ditch the pen and paper for a diary you can access anytime. Whether you have notes from a walking tour or an unexpected stroke of genius, jot it down via the Penzu journaling app. The beauty of Penzu is that it’s a private means of recording your thoughts. No judgments, no likes, no commentary…just pure ideas and memories. The Penzu app is perfect for keeping a travel journal or daily diary. It’s easy and has proven benefits for the brain—whether you’re channeling Tina Fey or Ernest Hemingway, the first step is downloading Penzu.

How Does It Work?

The interface is simple. Penzu allows for separate journals (diet vs. vacation) with limitless entries, which you can view at a glance. Not anyone else, just you. Penzu isn’t trying to be the next Twitter; on the contrary, the app goes the extra mile to be the opposite of Twitter. In addition to multimedia entries that are far longer than 140 characters, everything in Penzu is password protected. While sharing is caring, there’s an awful lot of over-sharing in our social media-centric world. Pick a passcode that only you know…and let your stream of consciousness flow.

Even if traveling isn’t your current focus, journaling has many proven benefits for all. Penzu even has special formats for a pregnancy journal, a five-year journal, dream journal, bible journal, health diary, food diary and more.

Penzu’s mobile app is excellent, but when you’re craving a writing session on a keyboard just sign into Penzu.com on your computer. If you’re on the road and want the QWERTY, just use a portable keyboard that connects to any phone or tablet.

Portable Keyboard

Our Favorite Part

Penzu’s site details the benefits of journaling while on the road: you’ll remember more, you’ll learn more and you’ll reflect more.  The composition of ideas sparked by writing down thoughts boosts memory and comprehension.

Use a journal to plan your trip, and even write down what you imagine it will be like—it will be an interesting exercise to compare pre- and post- thoughts. Definitely try to write at least a little bit during your trip while thoughts are fresh, and don’t hesitate to add pictures (a simple task on the Penzu app). And of course, hindsight is 20/20; it’s wonderful to reflect on an adventure and carry on the journaling habit in everyday life. Write whenever…vacation forever.

journaling apps

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Annie Edwards
Annie’s based in Los Angeles but hails from Portland, Oregon. Sort of. She moved to six states by the time she reached middle school, and continues to move around the US and abroad – call her a nomad, but she prefers “Location ADHD.” After studying abroad in New Zealand, Annie circled the globe, graduated from USC, and circled the world once again. For one year she lived out of a backpack everywhere from The Philippines to Nepal to Slovenia to Norway. She’s a curry connoisseur and passionate explorer, taking the road less traveled, the “trail” covered in vines and swarmed in exotic bugs. Foreign lands feel like home, and Annie loves encouraging more and more people to utilize their passports and experience a new culture.
03/23/2017 0 comment
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Opera App
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Connected Travel Thursday / App of the Week: Opera

written by Annie Edwards

What Is It?

Did you know that Netflix’s library is different in every country? For example, if you’re in the  U.K., you may not have access to major network shows like 30 Rock, but you can stream film comedy classics like Airplane! And some countries don’t have Netflix at all. That’s when it’s great to have Opera, a free VPN (virtual private network) app for desktop and mobile that enables you to access ALL nations’ Netflix libraries—as well as allowing uninterrupted internet services while abroad.

And, while Keeping Up with the Kardashians is critical, it’s even more important to keep your sensitive data—passwords, account numbers, etc.—private. Connected traveling generally involves using public internet; even if the connection is password protected, you’re sharing wi-fi with hundreds or thousands of other users. But if you use a VPN like Opera, all of your web traffic will be encrypted, meaning con artists can’t rain on your vacation.

How Does It Work?

Chick-flick night aside, being able to virtually change your location has very practical applications. What makes the world go ‘round? Money. Where is your money? In the bank. But what happens if you get locked out of your bank? While most financial institutions will only freeze or lock your account with your best interests in mind, it can be a real nightmare—especially if you’re on foreign soil.

Of course, you should always make sure to call your bank or update your online profile before heading on a trip. But even with this precaution, there is a laundry list of activities that will provoke your accounts to go into lockdown. A VPN will help you avoid the additional insult of paying international rates for your frantic calls to customer service.

For security purposes, many online portals can only be accessed in your home country. Rather than book a return ticket, simply download Opera and surf the web from Cincinnati, Denver, Portland…you name it. A secure U.S. connection is often required for online banking, as well as corporate networks. So if you’re planning on doing any work while away, make sure to download Opera.

And did you know that you can’t access Google and Facebook in China? That means zero likes and hundreds of unanswered questions if you happen to be traveling there for business or pleasure. Unless you have Opera to bypass restrictions—and keep the work or play flowing.

Our Favorite Part!

Opera’s VPN also helps you to hide from Big Brother. The VPN blocks ads, changes your virtual location and prevents pesky targeted ads from stalking you around the net. So even if you’re not out of the country, Opera will dramatically improve your web surfing experience.

opera

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Annie Edwards
Annie’s based in Los Angeles but hails from Portland, Oregon. Sort of. She moved to six states by the time she reached middle school, and continues to move around the US and abroad – call her a nomad, but she prefers “Location ADHD.” After studying abroad in New Zealand, Annie circled the globe, graduated from USC, and circled the world once again. For one year she lived out of a backpack everywhere from The Philippines to Nepal to Slovenia to Norway. She’s a curry connoisseur and passionate explorer, taking the road less traveled, the “trail” covered in vines and swarmed in exotic bugs. Foreign lands feel like home, and Annie loves encouraging more and more people to utilize their passports and experience a new culture.
03/16/2017 0 comment
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Pocket App
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Connected Travel Thursday / App of the Week: Pocket

written by Annie Edwards

What Is It?

If news were a currency, Pocket would be your bank. Save anything you find online to Pocket, whether it’s a yummy recipe, city guide, drone video, travel blog or even a juicy bit of fake news. Simply click the embedded Pocket button and save it for later. Pocket helps you stay informed on your own time, anywhere—regardless of whether or not you have wi-fi coverage.

How Does It Work?

Pocket integrates across desktop and mobile, including apps like Flipboard, Twitter and hundreds more. Once the app is installed, a logo will appear at the bottom of whatever you’re reading. Just click the Pocket button to save the article to your library. This app is particularly great for commuters or travelers since it enables you to save articles from a laptop, tablet or work computer to your account and access them later offline on your phone.

pocket-best-free-apps

Pocket lets you enter relevant tags either while saving a piece or after the fact. Tags are wonderful for organizing a library of content and separating work from play. Make up any tags, broad or specific. My most recent tags are: “Work, Recipes, Travel and Cuba.” Travel encompasses all wanderlust info/inspo, whereas I make destination-specific tags for upcoming trips.

The app also automatically organizes content by type—separating articles, images, videos and “favorites.” When Pocket is open, it feels a bit like your personal news publication. Its layout is easy to navigate, and the app will recommend other articles based on your reading history. There’s also an “explore” tab, which helps you discover articles that are trending or are industry-specific.

Our Favorite Part!

Once articles are saved in Pocket, you don’t need the Internet to access them. Let’s say you’ve just arrived in Cuba with a craving for something sweet. And let’s say you conveniently pressed Pocket on a guide to the best churros in Havana.

Even without wi-fi or data, Pocket makes accessing these recommendations a breeze—show your screen to a friendly local who can point you in the direction of Churros Plaza Vieja. This app makes it possible to leave the heavy guidebooks at home, providing you with a plethora of knowledge in your pocket.

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Annie Edwards
Annie’s based in Los Angeles but hails from Portland, Oregon. Sort of. She moved to six states by the time she reached middle school, and continues to move around the US and abroad – call her a nomad, but she prefers “Location ADHD.” After studying abroad in New Zealand, Annie circled the globe, graduated from USC, and circled the world once again. For one year she lived out of a backpack everywhere from The Philippines to Nepal to Slovenia to Norway. She’s a curry connoisseur and passionate explorer, taking the road less traveled, the “trail” covered in vines and swarmed in exotic bugs. Foreign lands feel like home, and Annie loves encouraging more and more people to utilize their passports and experience a new culture.
03/09/2017 0 comment
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Lola Travel App
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Connected Travel Thursday / App of the Week: Lola

written by Annie Edwards

What Is It?

Lola is the “phone a friend” lifeline for travel planning. The free Lola app lets users chat with travel agents instantly, making and changing arrangements on the fly. Lola combines a team of travel experts with cutting-edge technology to basically put a travel agent in your pocket.

Ironically, technology is what made travel agents obsolete. Now Lola uses it to save them. Use Lola to book a trip—hotel, flight, transportation, restaurants, and tours, you name it—and upon arrival, to get acquainted with an area and update your plans. Rather than an old-school travel agent who would be a long-distance phone call away, Lola is available via any WiFi connection worldwide. Take off with no worries, knowing you have a lifeline in your pocket.

How Does It Work?

Lola’s chat-focused system simplifies the entire process of researching and booking a trip. Signing up requires only your name and contact information—this is a key differentiator from other apps, which may attempt glean information about your demographics and interests for personalized recommendations. Most travel apps entail some form filling about travel dates, destination, etc., but Lola can get you started with just a text message.lola chat

 

Simply open the app and start chatting away—type where and when you’re going into one message. The app uses AI (artificial intelligence) technology to read your messages and direct them to a human travel agent who is an expert in that destination. Lola eliminates the research and planning workload associated with scouring the Internet for travel advice and deals.

Booking travel and tours through a travel agent versus an impersonal website just feels better—making us wonder why these experts ever went extinct in the first place. Having a dedicated agent in charge of your travels means there’s an actual human being who’s accountable for your reservations…and always available to make last-minute changes.

While booking through Lola is fantastic, the app really shines upon arrival. Chat your agent to find brunch spots or join a city tour. Based on chat history, Lola will develop a decent knowledge of your preferences, too. After a few trips, when you type in “Dinner in Santa Monica,” Lola will automatically know you mean “Local fare with an ocean view, but without attitude or tourist prices.”

Lola enables spontaneity while also keeping an eye on flight delays and reservation updates. Ask the app anything—whether it’s about concert offerings or traffic updates, Lola’s got your back.lola travel agent app

Our Favorite Part

Yes, texting is great. But whatever happened to the art of the conversation? Lola has call centers for ‘round-the-clock customer support. And in the very unlikely event that your Lola app is acting buggy, you can always reach Lola via email. Lola is expanding rapidly and may introduce price tiers as the app gains popularity, so our advice is to download it now.

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Annie Edwards
Annie’s based in Los Angeles but hails from Portland, Oregon. Sort of. She moved to six states by the time she reached middle school, and continues to move around the US and abroad – call her a nomad, but she prefers “Location ADHD.” After studying abroad in New Zealand, Annie circled the globe, graduated from USC, and circled the world once again. For one year she lived out of a backpack everywhere from The Philippines to Nepal to Slovenia to Norway. She’s a curry connoisseur and passionate explorer, taking the road less traveled, the “trail” covered in vines and swarmed in exotic bugs. Foreign lands feel like home, and Annie loves encouraging more and more people to utilize their passports and experience a new culture.
03/02/2017 1 comment
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1 Second Everyday App
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Connected Travel Thursday / App of the Week: 1 Second Everyday

written by Annie Edwards

What Is It?

There are so many tiny moments in life—funny, precious, awkward, genuine and spontaneous—and this app captures them all. 1 Second Everyday stitches together one second of every day of your year, using videos and photos to create a movie about your life.

This app enables you to effortlessly create a highly detailed digital scrapbook—making it our new favorite travel companion. It’s part paparazzi, part diary, and part documentary. Whether you’re documenting a special trip or your daily life, it delivers a truly innovative expression of your memories…for less than you’d pay for a roll of good, old-fashioned film.

How It Works

As seconds morph into years, 1 Second Everyday keeps fond memories alive. The app captures the special seconds of daily life, whether it’s watching the sunset from your own backyard, or a month-long trip to the Australian outback.

Photos can capture a certain look…less often, a certain feeling. But 1 Second Everyday’s approach to recording truly conveys the essence of an event. Rather than staging a snap, this app captures seconds automatically, so the photo feels more genuine. Time flies…suddenly the year is over…and you’re magically the star of your own movie.

So simple, yet so brilliant: the app connects to your photo and video library, seamlessly adding content to the app’s multimedia calendar. For days on which you’ve taken multiple photos or videos, you choose which assets you want in your movie.1 second everyday timeline

Looking for outside inspiration? The 1SE Crowds feature lets users around the world submit snaps for a look at daily life across the globe. These have categories such as Mardi Gras, Best of Britain and more. Likewise, the 1SE Insta-Mash update is ideal for those who are late to the game. Let’s say you road-tripped all around Iceland before you downloaded 1 Second Everyday. The Insta-Mash feature connects to your social accounts so you can transform past posts into one video—in just one tap!

Our Favorite Part

For travelers, the best feature is undoubtedly 1SE Freestyle. This feature enables users to break out of the 1-second mold to record unlimited seconds of footage and combine it in any order. Editing content into a polished product within the 1 Second Everyday app is wonderfully intuitive; no need to learn Final Cut or After Effects. If you can drag, drop and export, you can make your own personal documentary in minutes.

1 second everyday app compiling a video

Cool new app: $4.99. Professional-grade memories: priceless.

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Annie Edwards
Annie’s based in Los Angeles but hails from Portland, Oregon. Sort of. She moved to six states by the time she reached middle school, and continues to move around the US and abroad – call her a nomad, but she prefers “Location ADHD.” After studying abroad in New Zealand, Annie circled the globe, graduated from USC, and circled the world once again. For one year she lived out of a backpack everywhere from The Philippines to Nepal to Slovenia to Norway. She’s a curry connoisseur and passionate explorer, taking the road less traveled, the “trail” covered in vines and swarmed in exotic bugs. Foreign lands feel like home, and Annie loves encouraging more and more people to utilize their passports and experience a new culture.
02/23/2017 0 comment
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app of the week: chefsfeed
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Connected Travel Thursday / App of the Week: ChefsFeed

written by Annie Edwards

Need a prescription? Talk to a doctor. Want a book? Locate a librarian. Need a restaurant recommendation? Ask a chef. When in doubt, always ask an expert.

The ChefsFeed app squeezes thousands of chefs into your phone, all of whom have your taste buds’ best interests in mind. This app is excellent for finding food and learning about a locale’s culinary scene. Thanks to this easy-to-use app, every meal can be an unforgettable experience—whether it takes place a block or a hemisphere away from home. Maybe you’re starving for a snack while sightseeing; maybe you’re just trying to spice up an average Tuesday. Either way, ChefsFeed makes it easy to immerse yourself in the flavors of a new world.

ChefsFeed makes finding satisfying food dramatically simpler. This chef-powered app and website not only helps you find the best local restaurants…it also tells you exactly what to order. ChefsFeed works in over 50 cities, with more than a thousand chefs who add recommendations about other restaurants, as well as their own dishes. According to ChefsFeed, the best meal of your life is out there—and their chefs know where it is.

How It Works

Of course, other restaurant-finding apps like Yelp and Open Table are already serving millions of diners around the world. But ChefsFeed isn’t just about the destination; it’s about the journey. ChefsFeed is there for you during your entire hunger cycle, with three tabs: Scene (food education), Feed Me (restaurant guide) and Profile (key for personalized recommendations). Let’s break it down.

Scene: Brush up on trending foods. In honor of Valentine’s Day, recent featured stories included “50 Shades of Mousse” and “The Love doctors are In: Rules to Live By.” You can also check out nearby picks, top videos, top stories and chefs’ guides.

The Feed Me tab is home to what is arguably the app’s best feature: the map function. ChefsFeed integrates a GPS with restaurant recommendations, so finding a lunch spot is a breeze. The Feed Me tab also lets you sort nearby eateries by name or by chef so it’s easy to keep up with your palate influencers.

Quickly polish your profile: eating is social, therefore ChefsFeed is social. Personalize your profile tab manually or by syncing it with Facebook. Once you’re set up, you can save lists and recommendations. ChefsFeed will take your history into consideration when dishing out alerts about events or specials. You can also follow your favorite tastemakers’ activity on the app, giving you a leg up on what the next hot spot will be.

Our Favorite Part

Ok, so you can see the finish line: you’re at a restaurant and are just moments away from defeating hanger—at least for a few hours. But what to order? Even the yummiest menus have their gems and their duds. Before ChefsFeed entered the scene, a decent trick was looking at that restaurant location’s Instagram feed. But sometimes a dish’s photogenic score is inversely related to its tastiness. Sometimes a restaurant is famous for one bucket-list dish, while the rest of their food is adequate at best. The chefs and foodies behind ChefsFeed give you recommendations based on their real-life taste tests, so you’re never left with the aftertaste of disappointment.

chefsfeed app

And if you’re a chef, ChefsFeed can help you gain recognition! The founder recognized there are thousands of chefs, but only a handful of A-listers with social followings, so the app is dedicated to fostering up-and-coming culinary geniuses.

ChefsFeed is the ultimate foodie companion. Wherever in the world you are, whatever flavor you’re craving, ChefsFeed holds the key to meal satisfaction. The app and website are packed with exclusive articles highlighting guides, updates, and videos from your favorite chefs so you can become fluent in any cuisine. Farm-to-table eating is out; screen-to-seat dining is in. Bon appétit!

chefsfeed app

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Annie Edwards
Annie’s based in Los Angeles but hails from Portland, Oregon. Sort of. She moved to six states by the time she reached middle school, and continues to move around the US and abroad – call her a nomad, but she prefers “Location ADHD.” After studying abroad in New Zealand, Annie circled the globe, graduated from USC, and circled the world once again. For one year she lived out of a backpack everywhere from The Philippines to Nepal to Slovenia to Norway. She’s a curry connoisseur and passionate explorer, taking the road less traveled, the “trail” covered in vines and swarmed in exotic bugs. Foreign lands feel like home, and Annie loves encouraging more and more people to utilize their passports and experience a new culture.
02/16/2017 0 comment
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Mint App
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Connected Travel Thursday / App of the Week: Mint

written by Annie Edwards

What Is It?

Got your eye on a plane ticket? With a bit of budgeting via Mint, you’ll be able to embark on your next adventure sooner than you think. The free app is a jack of all trades, letting users create budgets, monitor credit scores, and effortlessly track or pay bills.

Within moments of linking Mint to your bank account, the app will display helpful spending breakdowns and financial advice, setting you en route to a healthy budget. Mint makes managing money bearable—borderline enjoyable, even—by eliminating the inherently tedious aspects. Bid farewell to number crunching and drawers stuffed with receipts, and say hello to a transparent financial service…and perhaps even a new suitcase!

How Does It Work?

Mint compartmentalizes your expenses. In a pre-Mint world, this extra step would require some serious spare time or unattractively Type-A qualities. The breakdown is necessary—it gives you insight into heavy-spending categories in order to create a personalized spending plan. You define the categories so they can be as vague or narrow as you want.

Mint Money Management App

In denial about your caffeine addiction? I sure am. Mint reminded me that my mocha fix comes at a price—a $37 per week, $148 per month expenditure. I could maybe justify that…but then I open Hitlist, and see that $148 could get me on a plane to Austin and back this weekend! With that fact in mind, I set my budget for coffee shops to only $50 a month, and Mint kindly reminds me when I’m approaching my limit.

Mint takes lessons from the Baby Boomers and adapts them to be Gen X, Y, Z, and Millennial-friendly. The onboarding process is shockingly simple—all you have to enter is your online banking username and password. Within half an hour of downloading Mint, I had a personalized, evergreen budget. Since Mint is linked to your accounts, the app is updated in real time and every transaction is categorized.

Younger users like to color outside the lines, and Mint takes that into consideration: the app has categories for Venmo and Cash exchanges, as well as areas to enter anticipated income. Once you tell Mint about your recurring expenses—rent, gas, insurance, etc.—the app shows your leftover cash, which you can divvy up however you chose. The app will also alert you about unusually high spending or large deposits, helping to fight identity fraud.

And your secrets are safe with Mint—set up a special passcode or use Touch ID for the app so only you can access the app, even if someone is borrowing your phone for a round of Heads Up. Upon logging in, the first screen gives a quick overview of your accounts: checking, credit card, savings and a travel account—I highly recommend making a separate savings account for something big you’re dreaming about, whether it’s a trip to Morocco or a new car. Toggling through Mint’s “Updates” and “Overview” tabs will provide you with infographics about your cash flow, spending breakdown, credit score, bills due, alerts and advice.

mint overview

Our Favorite Part

Full disclosure: at the end the first month, I found myself avoiding logging into Mint to get the hard budgetary truth—ignorance is bliss when we’re talking about spending $128 on poke bowls in one month! But, like a loving parent, Mint knows where to find you when there’s truth to be delivered (answer: email).

In the end, I found Mint to be a loyal cheerleader with a thoroughly positive spin on budgeting. Rather than looking at my expenses from the “I can’t do that, I can’t buy that,” point of view, Mint helps me think “I could do this instead of that!” Packing my lunch so I have money for a Bonnaroo ticket seems like a fantastic idea…one I would’ve never had if it weren’t for Mint’s pretty pie charts and genius insights.

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Annie Edwards
Annie’s based in Los Angeles but hails from Portland, Oregon. Sort of. She moved to six states by the time she reached middle school, and continues to move around the US and abroad – call her a nomad, but she prefers “Location ADHD.” After studying abroad in New Zealand, Annie circled the globe, graduated from USC, and circled the world once again. For one year she lived out of a backpack everywhere from The Philippines to Nepal to Slovenia to Norway. She’s a curry connoisseur and passionate explorer, taking the road less traveled, the “trail” covered in vines and swarmed in exotic bugs. Foreign lands feel like home, and Annie loves encouraging more and more people to utilize their passports and experience a new culture.
02/09/2017 0 comment
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Mobile Passport App
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Connected Travel Thursday / App of the Week: Mobile Passport

written by Annie Edwards

What Is It?

Finally, there’s a feasible solution to the one part of traveling that tends to be left off of the highlight reel: the border control bottleneck. Unlike most VIP lanes that require elite status or certain spending, this express lane just requires a download.

Mobile Passport revolutionizes the border control process by getting your personal info before landing, so once you arrive at immigration you can just flash a QR code and zoom through a separate line. With the Mobile Passport app, you can skip winding lines and mild interrogations.

How Does It Work?

Give Mobile Passport your lowdown: your name, contact info, passport number and snap a selfie. The app works at 20 airports and one cruise ship port around the world, so you’re covered most of the time you’re traveling internationally. After inputting your information, tap “Add Trip.” You fill out the forms before you land, and simply click “Submit Now” upon arrival. This generates a QR code, which is the only “paperwork” you need to cross country lines.

Mobile Passport App

There’s no need to shakily fill out forms amidst turbulence, or frantically borrow a pen upon arrival. Mobile Passport is especially nice for families or groups, as it keeps lines and moving to a minimum. You’ll probably beat the rest of your flight’s passengers through passport control—meaning that you’ll also fly through customs.

Our Favorite Part

Mobile Passport feels like our little secret. This app offers an excellent service that’s very similar to the Global Entry app, but Mobile Passport has far fewer users and it’s free! Global Entry will set you back $100 every five years; certain credit cards from American Express and Chase will also cover the fee, but that has unfortunately caused enrollment rates (and airport queues) to soar.

By contrast, Mobile Passport is well designed and proven to work, but it has only a fraction of the users! The programs have separate queues, too—and the one with fewer people is almost always Mobile Passport.

Get It Now

Apple

Android

Mobile Passport Entry

Want to learn even more ways you can stay connected while you travel? Click here. 

 

Annie Edwards
Annie’s based in Los Angeles but hails from Portland, Oregon. Sort of. She moved to six states by the time she reached middle school, and continues to move around the US and abroad – call her a nomad, but she prefers “Location ADHD.” After studying abroad in New Zealand, Annie circled the globe, graduated from USC, and circled the world once again. For one year she lived out of a backpack everywhere from The Philippines to Nepal to Slovenia to Norway. She’s a curry connoisseur and passionate explorer, taking the road less traveled, the “trail” covered in vines and swarmed in exotic bugs. Foreign lands feel like home, and Annie loves encouraging more and more people to utilize their passports and experience a new culture.
02/02/2017 0 comment
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