The smartphone trip

For the past two decades, I’ve made a living as a professional writer and photographer, traveling back roads in search of great stories to tell. I’m always searching for the latest technology that will make me more productive and efficient. Smartphones make trips much easier and more spontaneous.

Mapping and directions

With my iPhone, I have a built-in GPS mapping program that I use to plan trips. Once on the road, the same device gives me turn-by-turn directions. It provides the quickest route to my destination and also recommends off-the-beaten-path routes.

I also prepare by storing an automobile insurance card on my phone, along with a gas-tracking app that helps me identify the cheapest fuel stops and a customized playlist to play my favorite traveling songs.

I also check out Wikipedia on my phone’s browser. The Wikipedia mobile site is GPS-enabled and will suggest articles about nearby points of interest.

Still and video cameras

Another way smartphones excel is as both a still and video camera. For photography, the in-phone camera app is the best place to start. The phone I use has settings for standard images in the 4:3 format and square format, and includes a panorama setting. I use the panorama mode to take wide-angle shots from the road and to capture the broad vistas that smaller formats can’t.

While the standard camera settings are fine for most uses, I often use apps that give pictures a vintage feel. Hipstamatic is my favorite app — it adds cool, artistic embellishments.

There are several other apps available in Apple, Android or Google formats that add effects like filters, filmstrip borders, frames, light leaks and other embellishments to photos.

One of the greatest tricks that a smartphone camera performs is embedding GPS information in each picture. You can rely on any one of several low-cost photo-management software solutions to extract the GPS locations and pinpoint them on a software-generated map. These maps save the key points of a trip and help you relive memories later.

Smartphones also are equipped with high-definition video cameras that offer the ability to shoot slow motion, use apps to record video with a vintage 8mm look and do on-the-fly editing along with seamless posting to social sites like YouTube or Facebook.    

Make a note of that

You easily can use the notes or audio memo app on your phone to speak and record your thoughts. Recording an audio memo is just like it sounds: You talk to the phone and it records your voice.

Apps such as Dragon make trip journaling easy. Using voice-recognition capability built into your phone, you can speak to the phone, and the software transcribes speech to text on the screen. When you get home and you are ready to put your notes with photos or videos, it’s easy to email your notes, edit them in word-processing software and then copy and paste them into a book layout or any other presentation method.

The bottom line: Smartphones are a great tool for road trippers.