Travel games are nothing new, I remember as a kid playing checkers on a miniature board in the back of our family van. Travel Guess Who was one of my favorites. Sometimes on a long trip we’d bring a deck of cards, but without fail by the end of our trip we were playing 49 card pickup. It seemed impossible to keep all 52 cards together. Even the well designed travel games had small pieces to lose.  Those travel games are long gone, in my opinion, its a good thing.  No one wants to have loose game pieces to keep track of in the back seat of a car or on an airplane.

Of course as electronics kept on getting smaller and smaller, electronic versions of some of these travel games started popping up, and now we have a plethora of options that offer hours of mindless entertainment. Especially since the launch of the iPhone 3G and the App Store last year.

I can tell you that traveling has not been the same for me during the past year. I have tons of travel game options now. Classics like Connect Four, Yahtzee, Scrabble and Uno, all have resurfaced. Lately my favorite has been Scrabble. Hilarye and I play it together to pass the time in airports and on planes. Its so fun we’ve occasionally caught ourselves wasting an hour or two on a normal weeknight fighting our vocabularies to the death.

If you’re anything like me and need something entertaining to stimulate your mind on the way from here to there, check out what is now available in the travel game marketplace. In the biggest telemarketer voice I have “You’ll be glad you did!”

ice cream at Cal State Fullerton

This past weekend I went and visited one of my best friends from high school (well she is still one of my bestest friends). It was supposed to be a quick day trip on Saturday but I ended up spending the night. Which thinking back I am really glad I did. 

Sitting on the plane in the morning, the flight was half empty and there was only one other person sitting in first class, so it was a great time to think and catch up on some episodes of flight of the concords.  Arriving at the Orange County Airport at 9:30 am I was greeted by my cute friend Jill. After excited hugs and hi’s we sped off talking a mile a minute trying to catch up. A quick Starbuck’s run and we found ourselves walking around Cal State Fullerton’s campus. Jill is an art major there and she showed me where she goes to school and where her classes are. I love walking around different college campuses. They all have a different atmosphere and I find them all to be unique.

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Hallelujah! That is the sound of iPhone owners around the world rejoicing at the launch of iPhone Apps (and of course the new 3G iPhone which I am truly jealous of). Looking through the list of the Apps on iTunes, I am literally salivating at the thought of being able to turn my phone into a light saber, use pandora, be able to chat, and of course use facebook and twitter easily and more efficiently.

However, some things that really excite me are some of the new Apps that are designed to make traveling a little easier. Having an iPhone while traveling is usually a life saver, especially when you have never traveled to that city before. You can find restaurants and attractions using your maps and you always have the internet available which definitely comes in handy. But, the new Apps are going to bring that to the next level- and I can’t wait to try it out this weekend!

Here are a few of the Apps that I, and other fellow travelers should be excited about:

Whrrl- a cool app that is based on a map so you can share your current location with your friends- which might be fun for frequent travelers. Another cool tool with this app- it recommends places to go based on places your friends have recommended- and it remembers places you want to try in the future

ACTCurrency- would be handy for those traveling abroad. It is a universal currency converter and calculates the currency conversion. I think it would be convenient because it’s quick and easy- you only have to put in one number and it calculates as you type

Babelingo- another cool tool for traveling to a new country. You are able to type in a phrase and have it come up in the foreign language- and guess what! You don’t even have to try and struggle through the language- you can just show them your phone! Ultimate translator at your fingertips-gotta love that

Local Picks by TripAdvisor- You know how you go on vacation and you always ask locals where they recommend to eat? Well not anymore- this apps takes locals recommendations and brings them to your phone. The only downside is- it’s brand new so it could take some time for the database to build up, so start helping travelers out recommend great restaurants in your hometown!

Urbanspoon- I love apps that integrate aspects that are unique only to the iPhone. Basically Urbanspoon is set up like a slot machine and uses GPS to find restaurants near you based on type of cuisine, price range, and neighborhood. It includes ratings and reviews from newspapers, bloggers and other sources. Here is the fun part, if you don’t like the option, you shake your iPhone and another option comes up! What a gamble

There are so many great and mind blowing Apps that I challenge you to explore them for yourself. I found a lot based on subway systems for various cities that help navigate, tip calculators, travel and airline trackers, Travelocity and hotels.com both have Apps,  and Apps that are specific to different languages. I think this will change the way we travel and definitely for the better! I am excited to report back and let you know how they work!