Ever since AirTran and Virgin America rolled out their fleet-wide WiFi earlier this year, other domestic legacy carriers have stepped up their game and mostly stayed on track for connectivity. A great example is American Airlines, who reached the milestone of having 100 planes connected in August, with a goal of 150 by the year's end.

With over 100 WiFi-hot American birdies up in the sky, your chances of flying on one are better than ever. And just in case you get lucky and score a plane connected with Gogo, American wants to make sure you're ready with your laptop by letting you check in advance to see if you'll have the internet on your flight. Via a new widget, passengers may enter their flight number or departure airport and see, up to 24 hours before the flight, if their plane will be WiFi-equipped. You can even share the widget by embedding it your blog, adding it your iGoogle, and taking advantage of other options. ]]> JetSetCD 2009-11-20T09:04:40-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/11/13/142212/79

Not since the iPhone launch has a phone generated as much across-the-board hype as Verizon's new Droid handset. The full-keyboard 6oz. handset has seen a flood of glowing reviews from the geek community. Gizmodo: "it’s this simple: if you don’t buy an iPhone, buy a Droid." LA Times: "best Google phone on the market....best phone on Verizon." Boy Genius Report: "perfect storm between awesome hardware, great software, and a great network." Fair enough. But how does the Droid rate as travel gear?

Turns out, pretty well. Very well actually. There are even arguments to be made that a couple of the Droid's most prominent features are both targeted at travelers, whether they're taking road trips or traveling internationally, and are better than what any competitor can offer. Even that phone with the little apple on it.]]> Omri 2009-11-13T15:25:15-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/11/12/1790/0061

Usually we take a pass on these kinds of cookie-cutter holiday-themed Top 5 lists, if only because they get in the way of our much more nuanced iPhone Top 5 lists. But we felt inspired after seeing this season's billionth travel gear list with a moleskine journal or a foldable alarm clock.

On the very slim chance that you're shopping for a traveler who isn't a hipster but does have a cell phone that doubles as an alarm clock, herein are some reasonably cheap stocking stuffers and one unreasonably expensive one. Because it's already the post-Halloween shopping season. You're already behind, aren't you?

The Top 5 Travel Gear Stocking Stuffers, after the jump.]]> Omri 2009-11-13T09:29:26-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/11/10/151343/99

When the tech world's two major borgs square off for travelers' time and attention, that can only be good news for the rest of us. Google had already arranged for free WiFi on Virgin America flights and—as of this morning—they're also giving it away at more than 40 airports across the country. But that's small time compared to the deal Microsoft just struck to promote their search engine Bing.

Bing has worked out an arrangement with WiFi provider JiWire which will allow users to get free Internet in exchange for doing just one search on Bing. This is a campaign that will reach all of JiWire's hotspots which, more or less, amounts to just about everywhere:]]> Omri 2009-11-10T17:04:25-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/11/6/9158/91741

The London Guarantee Building is the tour’s starting point.

In this craptastic economy, you may not have the extra bucks to buy one of those expensive tours where a guide shows you the ins and outs of a city. So we decided to try out a recession-friendly, iPod self-walking "Loop to Loop" tour of Chicago. And it's totally FREE.

Just visit the Chicago Loop Alliance's website and decide whether you want to take a theater, an art or a landmarks tour; we opted for the latter, which takes you throughout the Loop. Download the appropriate tour and add it to your iPod. But for a seamless experience you will have to do some work. The site provides you with a map of all of the landmarks, but it just lists the names of the buildings. We recommend writing down all of addresses so that you know where the heck you’re going. Click on all 23 landmark points on the website to get the addresses. ]]> Jennifer Kester 2009-11-06T09:14:23-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/11/3/23572/9817

Twitter has made it a billion times easier for fans to stalk their favorite celebs, for airlines and brands to track their customers, and now, with the new Twitter Lists feature, it's super simple to follow frequent travelers around the globe. For those of you not yet on Twitter, we advise you not to tune out yet, because one day you will probably have to know about it for one reason or another.

Back to Lists—introduced during these first few days of November, the function is the first big update on Twitter in a long time. It allowed members to gather those they follow into neat and tidy lists based on any identifying characteristic, like mommy bloggers, celebrities, personal friends and—yes—travelers. In the course of these first few days of List generation, we've found ourselves included in over 100 lists and counting, keeping company with some of Twitter's best travel authorities and most frequent flying.

To help you on your List discovery, we've gathered up a few of our favorite travel-centric ones. Lo and behold, our Five Favorite Twitter Travel Lists RIght Now...]]> JetSetCD 2009-11-04T09:29:21-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/11/3/111337/089

Afraid of flying? Well, you're reading the wrong blog then—ha! But seriously for a moment, if you do have any hesitations about flyin,g or just need answers questions in your head during takeoff like "is that how the engine is supposed to sound," then have we got a new iPhone travel app for you.

The "Flying Without Fear" app comes from the lovely people at Virgin Atlantic's British program to end fear of flying, which recently got Whoopi Goldberg up in the air. Usually you'd have to pay about $350 per person for the courses and in-person instruction to have Virgin Atlantic pilots and crew help you work through your fears, but this new app is only $4.99 in the iTunes store and it even has breathing routines to relax. ]]> JetSetCD 2009-11-03T11:29:21-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/