In-flight Wi-Fi has steadily been gaining ground -- or sky -- these last few years, so here's a quick round-up of airlines that offer it (and at what prices).
Once your plane hits cruising altitudes of 10,000 feet or above, Wi-Fi can be activated safely. Whether you have a laptop, PDA or just a smartphone with internet access, you are set to go once you check which system your airline works with.
We all hate working on vacation, so finish up last minute tasks before you land!
It’s simple and fast to sign up for a Gogo wireless account, which most airlines are using to facilitate the service. Before that, check that your specific route offers an in-flight Wi-Fi program. Some shuttles or connecting flights may lack the service that makes your office mobile.
Southwest was the first to introduce the concept, and remains among the simplest systems in use. Like connecting to any other network, simply find the “Southwest Wi-Fi” router and hit connect.
American 3+ Hour Flights: $12.95 Less than 3 Hours: $9.95 Handheld devices (PDAs/smart phones): $7.95 (regardless of flight length) Note: Power sockets under your seat (possibly two)
AirTran Airways Laptops: Flights under 3 hours: $9.95 Flights over 3 hours: $12.95 Handheld Devices (iPhone, Wi-Fi Blackberry):
$7.95 (regardless of flight length) Note: Access on every flight through Gogo.com
Delta 3+ Hour Flights: $12.95 Less than 3 Hours: $9.95 Note: Service available on all domestic flights in US through Gogo.com. JetBlue Airlines BetaBlue program:
FREE Note: Only instant messaging and e-mail services are available for access. Southwest Airlines Special Feature: In testing phases, so prices range from $2 to $12.
Virgin America (updated: thanks jez, for the reminder!) Laptops: Under 1.5 Hour Flights and red-eyes: $5.95 1.5 to 3 Hour Flights: $9.95 3+ Hour Flight: $12.95 Handheld Devices (Blackberry, iPhone, PDA/smartphones: Under 1.5 Hour Flights: $5.95 1.5+ Hour Flights: $7.95
Loaded with up-to-date sight-seeing info, handy Google Maps and all the photos you'll need to spot your next stop, the only thing that might keep travelers from tossing their paper guidebooks is expensive international data transfer rates. (AT&T has tips and packages on this).
Our favorite feature on the Amsterdam Mobile Guide, of course, is that it's organized to help travelers narrow down their choices. Rather than standing on street corner scrolling through hundreds of activities, restaurants, and bars you don't want, the Mobile Guide groups To-Do List items by, for example, Gay and Lesbian, Nightlife, Architecture, and so on.
On that note, another handy feature of this iPhone app is that you can also organize your trip hotspots by how long you are staying with 8-, 48, or 72-hour itinerary suggestions,
Images Courtesy of Damron Company Story by Joseph Alexiou
The good folks behind Damron Gay and Lesbian Travel Guides (their slogan: "The First Name and Last Word in Lesbian and Gay Travel") has teamed up with Certified Vacations Group to operate a new brand of LGBT travel operator, Damron Vacations.
This fantastic new resource for gay travelers offers "one stop travel research, planning, and purchase." A human being-operated call center (yes, it is possible!) was also established to help travelers with their choices. Because Damron has access to all of the insider information from some 40+ years of reporting on gay and lesbian vacation spots, planning your stays with Damron Vacations is an obvious move to make. The call center's number is 1-888-850-6585. Reservations can also be made online by visiting their website.
We were lucky enough to speak with Damron president Gina Gatta, who considers the partnership with Certified Vacations an "obvious choice" because of their innovation and experience in the industry. Because Certified so excellently met the needs of what Damron needed in creating a travel operator, "Damron Vacations is more than just a booking engine," according to Gatta. "We're putting packages together for everyone. We'll always be able to help our travelers who need to get to the gay-friendly places in quaint small-town Kansas to New York City, but we're also putting together packages together for those who have done all of the gay stuff and are looking for something new."
Sounds kind of like "post-gay" travel to us!
Gatta agrees; "This is travel for those of us that want to experience something fresh and new, but still within our comfort zone when we need it to be."
Much expanded since its humble beginnings in 1964, Damron travel guides produces five titles annually: Damron Men's Travel Guide, Damron Women's Traveller, Damron Accommodations, Damron Amsterdam, and Damron City Guides, with listings for the best gay businesses in cities around the world.
The very gay-friendly people at W Hotels inspired aloft’s concept and goals, which are to bring the high design, high comfort, and high tech to a low cost environment. This environment, which is “otherwise bland and occasionally lonely,” refers to airport hotels and other in-between rests for frequent travelers: aloft hopes to raise the bar in quality here. With 500 locations planned, Starwood, aloft’s operator, is looking to revolutionize the industry with high-tech rooms that sound exciting just on their own (we can’t emphasize enough the appeal of gadgets). Services include like downloadable in-room movies and selecting room locations like one would for an airplane seat (additional features are described in our previous blog posting on aloft).
Designed by the world-renowned architect David Rockwell (who also designed for W Hotels), the rooms
are bright and spacious and the hotels feature funky cocktail bars and indoor/outdoor pools. The only question we have is how they can afford the very reasonable (and approximate) $150 a night price tag? As new hotels open in airports including DC’s Dulles North and South, Denver,Phoenix, and San Antonio, not to mention locations in Mexico and India by 2009, may your mission, dear reader, be to experience it for yourself!
Photos in Order: Courtesy Nap26 (3) Story by Joseph Alexiou
Even the most seasoned travelers shudder at the thought of a 12-hour flight. Jetlag can be detrimental, setting an undesirable mood during the first few hours of a vacation in a distant and exotic place. The power-nap is unattainable for many, and most travelers prefer not to rely on the usual drugs (alcohol, caffeine, and sleep aids) to help us sleep and wake us up in time for landing. Thank goodness for science which has provided Nap26.
This nifty product is a form of sound therapy that helps lull to
sleep even the most restless person. Marketed as a “non-drug audio sleep system,” Nap26 comes as either a CD or saved in a personal digital audio player. It uses modulated audio pulses and beat sounds to relax a listener enough to take a 26-minute nap. This amount is no accident: a NASA study showed that a 26-minute nap increased awareness in airline pilots. This same principle was used by the folks at at Nap26 to create the "binaural sound system" of pulses and beats to aid in your slumber.
This amount of rest will allow folks to catch up on their beauty sleep before stepping off the plane,
waking “as refreshed as if they had just enjoyed 3 hours of sleep.” Our Editor-at-Large Justin Ocean found it to be “pretty nifty,” as he was able to use the recording to catch some power-naps during some long flights on his tour of Southeast Asia. It can easily be downloaded into an iPod or similar mp3 device—and we know that gay travelers don’t go far without their gadgets to keep them company. Sweet dreams!
Photos in order: Courtesy Aircell (3) Story by Joseph Alexiou
Earlier this month we blogged about how much us gays can’t get enough of our gadgets. Although there is an ample choice of tech gear for travel aficionados, our laptop, iPhone, Blackberry, or PDA is much less exciting without instant internet gratification. Because we can’t do without even a few hours of connectivity during a cross-country flight, GogoTM has answered our prayers by providing in-flight wifi service on one of our favorite domestic airlines! American Airlines, the gold-medal winning domestic airline from our 2007 Reader’s Choice Awards has teamed up with Aircell to bring in “the first full inflight broadband service to the U.S. market. Aircell, the only company licensed in the U.S. to provides cellular communication in commercial airlines, has been providing onboard internet to private jets for several
years. The Gogo service, which costs $12.95 on flights more than three hours long, will be available on American Airlines flights from New York to San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Miami (some of our top-rated gay destinations!) on any the B767-200 aircrafts.
Although cell phones and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) services such as Skype are not available
in-flight, those signed up to Gogo can chat and email with their friends and colleagues, do some online shopping, check stocks, or get up-to-the-minute weather information at the flight destination! How’s that for cloud surfing?
Photos in order: Courtesy GayGadget.com (1); Courtesy Apple (2) Story by Joseph Alexiou
On the day Apple’s iPhone was released, isn’t it so that every gayborhood across the country was filled with the sound of in-the-know gays tapping their manicured fingers against touch-sensitive glass? When Bluetooth cell phone headsets first hit the market, were they not nestled in the ears of your most stylish and fabulous gay friends?
It is well known that gay men and lesbians set trends in fashion, technology, and essentially anything fabulous and worth buying. Serge Gojkovich, a gay man who loves anything that emits little beeps and has blinking lights, knows this too well and decided to capitalize on our insistence on having the newest, shiniest gadgets available with his new website www.gaygadget.com.
Gojkovich, President of LGBT marketing firm Gay Consultants, Inc. (GCI) launched the website on August 1st, and it offers the inside scoop on all the newest released (and unreleased!) gadgets for your car, iPod, phone, photos, and more. Told from the point of view of a tech-savvy gay male, GayGadget is a humorous and informative way to keep up with the newest technologies that will make staying in touch easier, getting on the plane more enjoyable, and exhibiting your recent vacation photos a more exciting experience. Happy shopping!
Photos in order: Courtesy of BodyGuardz; Getty Images
It’s hard not to look rather stylish, punching up Google Maps from an iPhone even as you make your way out and about. Who knew cyborg travel could be so chic?
A nifty add-on for the new lifestyle, NLU’s BodyGuardz sheaths the iPhone in a virtually scratchproof and invisible skin that is constructed of the same material that protects cars from road wear.
“I’ve been using BodyGuardz for a couple of months and it really is fantastic,” says Out Traveler’s editor and resident expert, Ed Salvato.
“It covers the iPhone almost seamlessly so you barely know anything is on it but protects from accidental scratches while allowing you the full use of all the iPhone’s touch-screen functionality.”
“It’s a little hard to get on, but just follow the instructions and be very careful. Once it’s on, it really does protect.”
Considering how quickly such websites pop up, disappear, stagnate, and so on, there should be a glut of happy couch reviews, right?
Not true, unfortunately. The pickings were disappointingly slimmer than expected, says Alport.
Even TripAdvisor, the Winner in his list, was far from perfect. There are user-generated reviews for gay establishments, but there's no way to tell if an establishment or reviewing user is queer.
You won’t learn it’s an LGBT travel-related hotel, destination, or review unless you knew already.
But keep an eye out for GayPedia, Alport recommends. This compendium of events, advice, and accommodations is trying to become fully Web 2.0-fluent, even if it still lacks content.
If you have a couch and some opinions, though, that’s where you come in.
About Out Traveler G.P.S.*
Out Traveler G.P.S offers dispatches from the ever-expanding field of gay and lesbian travel -- as soon as we know, you know. Check back frequently for updates, insider information, advice, and offers brought to you by our ever-roving band of gay travel experts and by readers just like you.
OutTraveler.com Editor in Chief Ed Salvato and his team travel the world for you. Occasionally we miss something. If you don’t see your favorite destination, tip or deal featured here, tell us about it!
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