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How To Make Your Own Tour Of Chicago On Your iPod, For Free

November 6, 2009 at 9:14 AM | by Jennifer Kester | 1 Comment

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.

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The Top Five Twitter Travel Lists Out There Now

November 4, 2009 at 9:29 AM | by JetSetCD | 4 Comments

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...

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Conquer Your Fear Of Flying With Virgin Atlantic's New iPhone App

November 3, 2009 at 11:29 AM | by JetSetCD | 1 Comment

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.

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Amtrak Competes With In-Flight WiFi By Adding Internet To Acela In 2010

November 2, 2009 at 5:14 PM | by JetSetCD | 1 Comment

Alright so how broke Amtrak is and how badly they need more passengers and cash is old and negative news. So how about some good news for train travel? Just a few days ago, it was announced that Amtrak is planning for WiFi on its Acela trains by 2010. This is what their passengers badly need, and hopefully the Northeast's few Acela routes are just the beginning.

2010 may be just around the corner, but frequent Amtrak passengers have been vainly attempting to connect to a network onboard for months now. For instance, when we chugga-chugged our way for fifteen hours (each way) between NY and the Midwest in March. Oh yes, we found an open network or two that moved with our train, but couldn't successfully connect. What's that about?

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This Fall's Five Best Totally Free iPhone Travel Apps

November 2, 2009 at 9:44 AM | by Omri | 2 Comments

Too many travel companies create iPhone apps just so they can say they have iPhone apps. In response we've been known to point out how stupid that is, though we've been nowhere near as brutal as our sister site HotelChattter. There's just something about travel companies wasting money on fads - and then passing those costs on to us - that makes us all very stabby.

But that's not to say we're against iPhone travel apps as a rule. And just to prove it, we've rounded up five of our favorite free travel-related iPhone apps from September and October. These apps will help you book hotels the way people actually book hotels, help you locate restaurants the way people actually locate restaurants, and help you maximize your time at Disneyland. Because it's the Happiest Place On Earth.

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Southwest Adds A 'Green Plane' To Their Fleet As An Eco Test Lab

October 22, 2009 at 8:46 AM | by JetSetCD | 0 Comments

During yesterday's big news day down at Southwest Airlines' headquarters in Dallas, much more was revealed beyond the ten new routes for 2010, including the reveal of Southwest's new "Green Plane."

Aside from the snazzy new recycling logo added to the usual Southwest heart on the plane, the 737-700 is outfitted with a range of eco-products being tested out by Southwest, since the Green Plane serves as more than just a machine flying passengers place to place, but also as a test lab. It will still be flying it's regular route as flight WN222 between Chicago-Midway and Boston-Logan, so Midwest and Beantown travelers should keep an eye out, although it'll still rotate throughout the system.

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SAS Airlines' New Paperless Boarding Passes Will Help You Shop Duty-Free

October 19, 2009 at 4:03 PM | by Omri | 0 Comments

SAS Airlines has joined the growing list of airlines allowing customers to check in with paperless 2D bar codes stored on their mobile. Passengers can have the boarding passes delivered either by SMS or via the SAS mobile site. The service will be available on domestic flights within Scandinavia and Finland, Intra Scandinavian flights, flights to Europe and Asia, and even some flights back from Europe:

SAS Scandinavian Airlines is now offering its passengers the convenience of mobile boarding passes. This means SAS customers can now travel using only their mobile phone and with an ID card/passport... The mobile boarding pass contains a 2D bar code that can be read electronically at the airport. The 2D bar code can be used to get baggage tags from the SAS Self Service kiosks, at security screening, duty-free shopping, entering SAS lounges and when boarding.

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Air Canada Wins Race For First North American Airline BlackBerry App

October 16, 2009 at 3:57 PM | by Omri | 0 Comments

Having been the first North American airline with an iPhone travel application, Air Canada has now become the first one with a Blackberry app. The software allows travelers to get flight status updates, confirm their reservation, and even generate a 2-D boarding pass that locks in their seats and sets them up to board the plane. That last feature is the kind of thing that separates airline travel apps from the ever growing list of hotel travel apps. Generating a preexisting boarding pass earlier is better.

We've long been confused by airlines that leave Blackberry users behind while rushing into the iPhone market. Do people with Blackberries not travel a lot? Are companies afraid that Blackberry users aren't as tied to their phones? Have they heard of the word "crackberry?" Air Canada definitely has, per their press release:

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The Need-To-Know Basics About TSA's 'Secure Flight' Program

October 14, 2009 at 11:23 AM | by JetSetCD | 0 Comments

These days, when the TSA announces a new security measure, we are ready to be confused and inconvenienced by it. Their "Secure Flight" program began in much this way as well, with the TSA frustrating travelers with demands for complete names on tickets and a disclosure of birthdate and gender.

But as Secure Flight progresses, we've barely noticed the changes as we fly about the country, and nothing has tripped us up quit yet. Nonetheless, it's important to know what airport security is doing when they scrutinize your ticket and how to handle any possible issues as Secure Flight zeros in on whether or not you are possibly terrorist.

After the jump, the basics of what you need to know about Secure Flight.

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Lufthansa Resurrects Their 'FlyNet' For Long-Haul In-Flight WiFi

October 13, 2009 at 8:48 AM | by JetSetCD | 0 Comments

With the proliferation of In-Flight WiFi on domestic routes in the United States, we always hoped that long-haul WiFi was right around the corner. In fact it's in the past, with FlyNet from Lufthansa, which was a broadband internet connection on 66 of 82 long-haul planes that functioned between 2004 and 2006. Lufthansa suspended the service—provided by Connexion by Boeing—at the end of 2006 with a promise that it would return one day.

That day is coming in mid-2010 when FlyNet relaunches better than ever, with a partner in Panasonic and the new ability for connection with GSM/GPRS units so that you will even be able to text on your phone from 35,000=feet up. Although there's no word yet on pricing, Lufthansa does plan to outfit a majority of their long-haul aircraft once again, and be the leader in this second chapter of in-flight wifi.

So how great will the connection be?

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Your iPod Will Become The New Ultimate In-Flight Entertainment

October 9, 2009 at 10:31 AM | by JetSetCD | 0 Comments

Right along with in-flight wifi, the general range of in-flight entertianment continues to widen. A few months back, we summed up the current choices for IFE (in-flight entertainment) with our 2009 Airline In-Flight Entertainment Status Update, which included everything from full fleets boasting satellite television to those airlines where it's strictly "pack a word search book." Hopefully soon all airlines will have some option for bored passengers, and we think we found the best one:

The newest advance in IFE comes from Rockwell Collins, who have introduced the ability for passengers to hook up their iPods and other such personal media devices to a seat's entertainment system. This would enable you to watch the movies you've downloaded to your iPod via the larger screen on the seatback in front of you.

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Did You Want To Use Your Credit Card In Europe? Sorry.

October 5, 2009 at 1:18 PM | by Omri | 0 Comments

As if the cratering dollar wasn't enough of a problem for US tourists, the New York Times reports that even trying to use American credit cards in Europe is getting difficult. The problem is in the so-called chip-and-PIN verification technology that much of the world is adopting as an alternative to magnetic strip cards. Instead of swiping your card you're supposed punch in a personal ID that needs to match the one encoded on the chip. Only problem: US credit cards mostly don't have those chips.

The writeup manages to convey the issue with all the cosmopolitan awareness we've come to expect from the NYT Travel section. They relate the story of a passive-aggressive couple in Paris who—having had their cards rejected by bike kiosks—just walked around sullenly telling no one in particular how would awesome if they could ride a bike. Obnoxious. But that doesn't make the problem any less real:

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