World Traveler

WARSAW. SEPT. 8, 2010—World Traveler, the popular mobile travel platform offered by Polish mobile solutions innovator Psiloc—as well as the company’s hot-selling Font Magnifier application—now come pre-installed on Nokia’s newly-released E5-00 mobile device, Psiloc announced today. 

“The pre-installations are exciting news for Psiloc, as we will see World Traveler’s reach continue to grow with the platform pre-installed on not only more, but some of Nokia’s most-advanced devices,” Marek Filipiak, president and founder of Psiloc said.

World Traveler, Psiloc’s popular mobile travel platform, has gained more than three million active users since arriving on the market in June 2009. World Traveler works on a “freemium” model, which includes both free plug-ins, such as a five-day Weather forecast, Currency converter and World Clock, as well as premium plug-ins that are available on a paid-subscription basis, such as Flight Assistant and Travel Safe.

Flight Assistant enables users to check alternative flights and get alerts in the event of changes to a flight schedule. Hotelzon, another World Traveler plug-in, allows a user to search for available hotels and book rooms through the mobile phone. Travel Safe is a virtual vault for sensitive information, such as passport, or credit card numbers.

Psiloc’s popular Font Magnifier application also comes pre-installed. Font Magnifier has been a Psiloc mainstay for years, as users find it improves the user-friendliness of a cellular phone with the ability to increase or decrease fonts.

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Hurricane Earl spun out of the Gulf of Mexico to roll up the U.S.'s Atlantic Coast - disrupting air, automobile and train travel as it went. Photo by NASA/courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The scene is replayed year after year. A businessman books a flight to Florida—or in this case North Carolina—and then bad weather forces him into a rerouting nightmare.

The result? Unplanned stopovers. A day wasted in an airport. Missed meetings and the cost of the trip still on the books.

Could it all be avoided? Maybe or maybe not—after all hurricanes are hurricanes. But the business traveler in question would have a better chance with World Traveler’s Fight Assistant plug-in. (To check out Flight Assistant, hit this link: http://www.worldtraveler.biz/product.html#2.)

The fact is that Flight Assistant has become one of our most-downloaded and used plug-ins for a reason. You can check alternative flights through your mobile phone, but when it comes to bad weather you can also get a heads up by simply checking your flight’s current status, or by setting an alert to notify you immediately of a sudden status change.

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It might be tempting, but avoid drinking from even high mountain rivers or streams. Parasitical invections such as giardia are simply too common and potentially too serious to risk should you become infected on a hike. Photo by Yorian/courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

You’ve been there. You’ve rationalized. You’ve faced the consequences.

The fact is that travel and food don’t always mix. The fine dining experience abroad is all well and good, but the ordeal of just getting to that foreign country of choice is often where diets slip, where food-borne pathogens take advantage of fatigue and stress and where the trip often goes wrong in the first place.

So here are a few tips that may save from that queasy stomach—or worse—the next time you travel.

1)      Whether on the plane, train or in the automobile, drink plenty of water. The first rule of thumb is that water—good water—is a good thing. Plane passengers especially need to (more…)

American Airlines is likely to pay a huge fine for 2008 maintenance infractions on the airlines MD80 passenger planes (shown above). Despite attempts to fight the FAA ruling or to negotiate the fine, the bad publicity will likely haunt the carrier as it deals with potential strikes and unrest within its ranks. Photo by Felicity and Phillip/uploaded by Kai Brinker/courtesty of Wikimedia Commons.

American Airlines must be reeling.

By now most in the industry already know that U.S. officials have slapped a $24.2 million fine on American Airlines for 2008 maintenance lapses. The fine is record-setting, hammers American Airlines when it’s down, and if perhaps the collective reaction is “ouch, I bet that hurt,” the real problem with fines is the publicity.

The very, very bad publicity.

In short, the general public tends to have the collective memory of a goldfish. The year 2008 is ancient history. No blood, no foul, life goes on. Whatever maintenance problems were going on at the time, 99 out of 100 Joe Travelers have long since forgotten about them—if they ever knew to begin with.

Yet massive fines—which quickly become far-resonating business articles (and blogs, for that matter)—are a different story. The public will now take a closer look, and trust me, it gets ugly quick.

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The Mexican crocodile can be a scary beast, but Cancun visitors have little or nothing to worry about--unless they drink too much and go swimming in the lagoon. Photo by Tomas Castelazo/courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

In an effort to both inform and entertain the wonderful readers of this esteemed World Traveler blog, we have decided (on a monthly basis) to explore the myths, mysteries and legends of some of the world’s most famous tourist destinations.

No, we are not (necessarily) talking the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot, but other, perhaps less known and more practical bits of info that could very well come in handy should you set foot in the vacation spot of your dreams.

And if we poke a bit of fun along the way, hey, most top destinations can fend for themselves.

Which leads us to the multiple, wonderful and titillating subject of crocodiles in Cancun.

1. The crocodile that ate the newlywed parasail enthusiast. When it comes to Mexican vacation horror stories, this has to be No. 1 in our book—and it is a story that must be at least 20 years old, as this blogger first heard at the tender age of 23 on his first trip to the Yucatan Peninsula. At any rate, legend has is that a couple honeymooning in Cancun saw a vacation and marriage come to a quick and tragic end, thanks to the lagoon’s infamous crocodiles. The new husband just had to try parasailing, but the cable broke (more…)

Traveling via a 'packaged holiday' may mean that you miss cool, off-the-beaten-track spots like Myrtos Beach near Greece's Kefalonia. Photo by Christos Vittoratos/courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Perhaps nothing is more tempting for European travelers than the cheap, flashy, ‘package holiday’ trip. Whether advertised in the storefront windows of small travel agencies or whether sold in tandem with the slick telephone-book like catalogues produced by big name travel companies, there is definitely something attractive about booking that last-minute, completely pre-packaged voyage to an idyllic Greek Isle or laid-back Spanish beach.

After all, there is no stress. Your hotel is chosen. Your transport is guaranteed. Mealtimes are set. In fact, you hardly have to use you brain at all.

All you have to do is relax. Right?

Wrong, actually.

Let’s just put it this way: Been there, done that. In fact, this blogger would even recommend “winging it”—i.e. heading for a foreign destination with nothing booked in advance—to the typical charter tour.

Here’s a few reasons why:

1)      You are joining the herd. While you obviously have no obligation to spend time with fellow travelers—or even talk to them—make no mistake that the travel company now in control of your life sees you much differently. You are a number. Import-export material. Of course, your travel company or booking agent would claim that there is no truth in this (more…)

JetBlue is getting much press over the Steven Slater affair, but oddly the mystery passenger who prompted Slater's meltdown remains anonymous. Photo by JKrugel/Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Yes, the Steven Slater-JetBlue soap opera continues, with the airline finally addressing the situation by saying only that “sometimes the weird news is about us” while acknowledging that Slater has become the darling of internet forums everywhere.

But oddly, there has still been no mention of the name of the passenger involved.

Strange, strange, strange. Under most circumstances we would hear that 1) the passenger had been arrested for unruly behavior on a flight and 2) that assault charges had been either dropped or were now pending–simply due to the obvious bruise on Slater’s head, which was apparently caused when the passenger disobeyed Slater’s request to remain seated and opened the luggage rack on the flight attendant’s head.

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JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater chose the emergency chute over the typical method of disembarking from a plane upon landing. Despite his arrest, he has become something of an American folk hero for those fed up with dead-end jobs. Photo by PlusMinus/courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

By now many of you have heard of the Jet Blue steward who “lost it” following a confrontation with a passenger—and who now is being vilified by much of the public and the press.

Yet a glance at the details of what actually happened are more than revealing—in fact, they quite likely give us perhaps too close a look at not only the behavior of frustrated airline personnel, but of the behavior of passengers, which is not always exemplary to say the least.

Although reports vary, Steven Slater, a flight attendant who had worked for a number of airlines before JetBlue, apparently became involved in a verbal altercation with a female traveler who first refused to sit down while the plane was taxiing to the gate at JFK airport in New York. The passenger not only refused to sit down, but cursed Slater as she pulled luggage out of the overhead bin and reportedly hit Slater in the head.

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The ancient city of Petra in Jordan tops our list of desert destinations, especially as Wadi Rum is close by. Photo by David Bjorgen/courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

There are those who need the sun and those who really need the sun.

For the latter—whose idea of a holiday involves dunes, pyramids, arroyo hikes, etc.—and no beach—well, we’re not saying we completely understand you, but there are definitely some destinations that separate themselves from the rest.

Below is a list for top hotspots (literally) if you want that perfect “Lawrence of Arabia” vacation—or if perhaps you don’t, but you still want sand dunes, desert nights and… well… erm… desert nights, this is the list for you.

1)      The ancient city of Petra in Jordan. Designated by the BBC as one of the 40 destinations you “must see before you die), the city of rose-colored rock is now familiar to millions simply for its appearance in the Indiana Jones film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In short, yes, the famous entrance shown in the film not only exists, but it is even more impressive in real life, as is the “siq” or shaft—the dark, sandstone crevasse that leads to the entrance of what in antiquity was basically a man-made oasis and trading center. The history of Petra, in part mystery, in part an impossible tangle within the myriad empires of the times, would basically take pages to even properly sum up. Suffice to say that it was a Nabataen trade center/fortress that later fell into neglect under Roman rule. At any rate, this is a must-see destination, which should be high on the list, if not top, on a visit to Jordan.

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