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Vacations just aren’t about the sights and travel plans: Part of the essence of travelling to a new location is basking in the music and culture of wherever it is you’re going to. To do that from the comfort of your desk, there are a few sites that immediately spring to mind for getting your international rock on. Shoutcast is self-explanatory: This popular music streaming service gives you plenty of free International feeds to listen to across a number of countries and cultural categories.
The website Tracksonamap takes this premise a little bit further and, like every other app in the known world, uses a tie-in to Google Maps to display its results. In this case, you’re getting a map that’s full of different tracks to listen to, arranged by the originating country of the music. The music comes from the Soundcloud service, and you can flick between different genres merely by selecting your favorite styles at the bottom of Tracksonamap’s screen.
Livestation is a website that’s analogous to Shoutcast for video feeds: For the intelligent traveller, pulling up a number of different (and free) international news feeds is as easy as clicking the mouse. MyP2P offers a similar service for the sports world, though your mileage may vary as to how successful you’re going to be for tuning into live, international sports coverage. For UK-only enthusiasts, try TVCatchup!
Language. It’s my personal pitfall of travelling, as I have neither the time nor the mental fortitude for learning even the slightest bit of any non-English language. That doesn’t mean you can’t, however. The giant online network Palabea is a mix of person-to-person communication tools, learning aids, and native speaker meet-ups, all designed to help you learn a language that isn’t your own (or, conversely, teach someone else who’s trying to learn your language). My Language Exchange presents a similar concept–it’s like finding a digital pen pal and language practice dummy all in one.
The beta app Voxy–for both Apple and Android phones–is a points and achievement-driven multiplatform tool for learning languages “from life,” as founder Paul Gollash puts it. The platform, currently in beta, combines contextual learning (think language learning based off current news items, not stale sentences in the style of, “Jane does something”) with a wide range of delivery methods: learn via your mobile device through an app or text message, receive lessons through your Inbox, or fire up your Web browser itself! Every spare moment is a language learning opportunity, as Voxy calls them.
If you’d like to try and master an accent in addition to the language of a particular region, fire up Map Your Voice. Those submitting to the app are tasked with reading a list of six words or a slightly longer short story, Roger Hargreaves’ “Mr. Tickle.” These submissions are then plotted on a world map, giving browsers an easy method for listening in on the accent of any given area or presumed language. Cool stuff, aye? (Or, eh?)
We'd be doing ourselves a diservice if we didn’t include a tip of the hat to the medium of publishing itself. Besides, wouldn’t you want to read about what’s going on in the places you’re currently visiting (or plan to visit)? For a geography-driven presentation of the top stories around the world, look no further than the news-meets-maps mashup of Mapeas. It’s pretty; it’s newsworthy.
If you want the slightly more unfiltered feed, or have a love of dead tree media (Keep buying! Keep buying!), then the perfectly named app “Newspaper Map” does exactly what its title suggests. In this case, you’re given a map with a whole ton of little markers on it. Clicking on a marker pulls up a newspaper for a particular area, and the colors indicate what language the newspaper is written in.
And, finally, because Web Apps are the new newspaper, the website AppAppeal does an excellent job of showing you which Web apps within the sites database are most popular per country. It lists these categorically or, if you really want to drill down, you can see which countries send the most traffic to a specific web app of your choosing.
What’s the most important category for a virtual vacation? Travelling, of course–gotta get to your destination after all, no? Whereables is the perfect web app to plot out such a virtual voyage: Each icon overlaid on a huge map represents an airport you can fly in or out of. Click on an airport, and then click on the routing icon, and you get an instant visual representation of every location that airport serves.
Once you’re in a given area, fire up the app MisoTrendy to combine the latest data pulled from the Foursquare service with any area you’re interested in learning more about. All you need is a Foursquare account of your own to reap the benefits of every other travellers brain trust–locals too!
And last, but certainly not least, a small present for the men (and bold ladies), if you’re in a foreign land and you just have to go. You know. Go. Then why suffer the embarrassment of having to ask for directions to the potty/loo/WC? Pull up Urinals of the World for that yes-everything-has-a-Google-Maps-mashup web tool for showing you the nearest place to accomplish your business. Seriously; if you need a Web app just to pee, we have bigger problems than your travelling habits. Or maybe you should have taken it easy on the World’s Best Bars listing.
Former Maximum PC editor David Murphy loves to travel. He does not enjoy paying roaming charges for his various mobile devices.
Comments are closed on this article
icrazy
June 12, 2011 at 8:36am
When I hit the "Print" button, there is a list of links at the bottom of the page, but in the article, references to those links ([1], [2], ...) are gone! So there is no good way to tell which link comes from where. Please fix this!
HoopSpread
June 08, 2011 at 10:17am
Yeah,these apps are really fascinating. I've checked into Google Earth,...can't say '"I've been evveeerrry where maaan". Still it is a great way to look at things that does not have entry,import/travel restrictions.
Some of the areas would not be presently matched views . That is they may be several years back. But checking into the local area photos/videos is plenty entertaining,and very informative.
Comparative to some of the emotional news accounts of several areas,where you might be lead to believe (such as china) people are walking in potatoe sacks etc. You can see life for how it is . An interesting aspect of viewing a mysterious place.
