Road Warriors Tip: 5 Must Have Things for a Road Trip

Right now I am on the backend of a trip to Columbus, Ohio. I decided to drive rather than fly because I needed to stay connected during my travel. The drive was roughly 5 hours which to me is a piece of cake. When I arrived I went right to work and realized what made the trip so easy was the things that I travel with. So let me help you for your next road trip

Hardware

Zune HD

Without a doubt music is a big part of any long road trip. I like listening to Old School Hip Hop and R&B when I am taking a trip. The Zune HD is the best media player out. The music sounds excellent coming out of this device. One of the biggest surprises was the battery life. Inevitably when you travel enough you either forget to bring something or you forget to do something prior to leaving. Well I did both. I forgot to fully charge my Zune and I left the charge cable. The Zune had less then half power left and to my surprise that was enough for the entire trip.

Trapster

It like to drive fast. But I hate getting a ticket. One of the coolest ways to do this is Trapster. Trapster is a community based radar detector. The concept is when Someone passes a Speed Trap or a Red light Camera they update the location on the Trapster Map. Trapster uses your GPS to keep track of your location. Trapster then sends that data up to their servers and down to everyone else running Trapster. It is similar to flashing your headlights when you see a speed trap. I shaved 47 minutes off of my trip and no ticket!

Belkin Tunecast

My truck at home has a 3.5mm stereo input which really helps if you want to use a music player in the car. For this trip I drove a rental car that did not have a 3.5 mm input. When this is the case, I use the Belkin Tunecast FM transmitter. If your not familiar with what an FM transmitter does it takes your audio, in my case via the 3.5mm headset port on the Zune HD, and broadcasts it on a FM radio frequency. Your job is to find a weak frequency then you simple tune your car stereo to the same frequency on the transmitter.

Sometimes you find these devices only allow you a few frequencies. But not only does the Belkin Tunecast give you a full range it is a pretty strong signal too. This helps avoid other stations coming through when you get into different areas. The Tunecast can also charge your device. The Belkin Tunecast plugs into your cigarette lighter and has a standard USB jack on the back of it. You can then plug your USB chare cable into it and charge your Zune. This is assuming you done forget your USB cable at home as I did.

Software

AT&T Navigator

I have no doubt Rod is screaming Google maps or Bing maps at this moment but to put it simply AT&T Navigator rocks. What good is GPS hardware without a good program to use it. I really like AT&T Navigator. It is very lightweight because the maps are on their servers. The directions are sent to your phone over the data network (make sure you have a good plan) The directions were flawless. Although I didn't have to use this feature it does offer to route you around traffic jams too. Oh and unlike Verizon customers, Rod, I can talk on the phone and download maps at the same time.

Yomomedia Feed Reader

When I want a break from music I will listen to podcasts. Now my Zune HD can play podcasts but it does not support over-the-air (OTA) updates. With a mobile phone like the Tilt 2 I always have a data connection thus OTA updates to download new podcast episodes is seamless. The app I use is Yomomedia it is a great RSS reader and great podcasts client. I did a review on Yomomedia a few weeks ago, and now it it has become a part of my road trip must haves!

Let me know what you use.

Tagged as: At&t navigator, Belkin Tunecast, Road trip, Road Warriors, tilt 2, Zune HD