With cheap flights and multinational companies, travel has become a necessary evil in the modern world – but it doesn’t have to be a miserable experience.
DailyMail.com has put together nine technical travel hacks built to help you plan cheap trips, travel in comfort, and make life easier when you get to your destination.
With the help of modern apps and technology, you can forget about tinny airplane headphones, physically write out itineraries and do mental gymnastics to convert foreign currencies.
Connect your Airpods to in-flight entertainment
Don’t stock it with the cheap headphones provided by your airline — there’s now a way to wirelessly connect your AirPods to the in-flight entertainment system.
Instagram user Nikias Molina showed off the hack on a United flight.
He said, “You can now connect your AirPods to your plane’s screen. Tap the Bluetooth icon.
“Reset your AirPods. They magically appear by tapping your AirPods.
You are now connected. Choose a movie. You can also adjust the volume and adjust the noise canceling.’
Let AI plan your trip
ChatGPT is good at creating itineraries
ChatGPT is actually a surprisingly good guide, summarizing and presenting all the freely available information about a destination you might want to visit.
Ask ChatGPT about must-see attractions in a destination, let ChatGPT list the top tourist attractions in an area – or ask what time of year is ideal to visit.
For example, if you ask ChatGPT to “create an itinerary for a two-day trip to New York,” it will.
However, ChatGPT’s knowledge of the world will end in 2021, so don’t rely on it for up-to-date restaurant recommendations.
Use a VPN to get cheap flights
Using VPN software can help you get cheaper flights by making it look like you are buying from another country.
VPN software (you can get it for your phone or PC) routes your requests through a server in different countries – and airlines often vary their prices based on where people buy.
Using a VPN can reduce prices by up to 47 percent, according to research by VPN provider NordVPN.
Visual Text allows you to translate and convert currencies
It’s usually worth paying for VPNs, as the free ones are often quite questionable, but the savings are very real.
Instantly translate the menu (and convert currencies)
You can instantly translate text by pointing your phone’s camera at it, as long as you have an up-to-date iPhone
On iPhone XS, iPhone XR, and later, Camera can copy, share, find, and translate text that appears within the camera frame.
The camera app also offers quick actions to easily call phone numbers, visit websites, convert currencies and more, based on the text that appears in the frame.
Open Camera and position iPhone so that the text appears inside the camera frame.
After the yellow frame appears around the detected text, tap the menu icon and then select Translate to translate text.
Tap a quick action at the bottom of the screen to convert currencies and more.
Instantly identify landmarks (or flowers).
Visual Look-Up helps you identify nearby flowers or landmarks (Apple)
Visual Look Up on iPhone lets you instantly identify landmarks (and you can also use it to identify plants and animals you encounter on your travels).
Open a photo in full screen; an ‘information’ icon indicates that visual retrieval information is available for that photo.
Swipe up on the photo or tap the information icon.
Tap the icon as it appears on the photo or at the top of the photo information results to view Siri Knowledge and more information about the object.
Android users can access similar features through Lens (it’s accessible under Modes in the Camera app on Pixel handsets and can also be downloaded from the Play Store).
Choose your seat on the plane
SeatGuru – now a subsidiary of TripAdvisor – is a great service to help you choose seats and work out onboard amenities.
Seats are ranked from ‘Bad’ upwards and provide information such as where power is available on the aircraft.
The service offers seat assignments for a large number of aircraft.
Get a flyover of a city before you visit it
With Flyover, you get an idea of a city before you visit it
Apple Maps lets you take a “virtual helicopter flight” over a city before you visit it – thanks to the Flyover feature in Apple Maps.
It’s a great way to get a feel for a city before you book a trip.
To access, use the top right button to select any card other than Transit.
Tap the name of a city or the name of a landmark. Tap Flyover on the place card.
If Flyover doesn’t appear on the place map, tap the X icon for some landmarks, then tap Flyover.
Tap Start Tour or Start City Tour in the map at the bottom of the screen.
Keep track of your luggage
Apple’s Airtags (or Tile if you’re an Android user) are a great way to track luggage while traveling.
The $29 tracker falls within the Federal Aviation Administration’s allowable guidelines for the amount of lithium in checked baggage, so it’s legal to use.
This allows you to use the Find My feature to locate your bags – or attach a tracker to your passport or keys.
Airtags are an invaluable travel companion
Find out what you need to fly
The requirements for vaccines against Covid are not as important as they were a year ago, but many countries still require vaccinations or visas to travel.
The Join Sherpa service provides a good overview of this for each destination.