To date, I've been to more than
35 cities in over 20 countries and explored countless historic neighborhoods,
famous monuments, and beautiful castles. Avid explorer and history geek that I
am, I spend as much of my time abroad exploring as I can. Even in LA, where
I've lived for almost 2 years now, there's a lot of history that I haven't
explored yet. With travel as a passion, the idea of an interactive,
augmented-reality-driven mobile travel guide capable of is pretty exciting. This is essentially what the Travel Guide
with AR by GeoTravel claims to be.
Promotional
Screenshots of the App in the App Store
While
I’m not in a totally foreign city and therefore can’t accurately replicate the
conditions this app is supposed to be used in, I did try out several of the
features in this app:
I
used it to navigate from my apartment to local monument Tommy Trojan.
I looked for nearby points of interest
in three different languages.
I planned a trip in advance and
downloaded the wikipedia pages.
I
even marked the location of my apartment using the Car Finder feature.
Pros: I love to travel and I am a little bit of a history
geek, and this app is super cool for people looking to get the most out of
their sightseeing adventures abroad. The camera view overlay screen reminds me
of the Yelp Monocle option, but instead of guiding the user towards
restaurants, it guides travelers towards local points of interest, like
historical neighborhoods and famous monuments, in almost any city in the world.
This summer I spent time in 8 different cities where this sort of specific
guide might have not only helped me get more out of my experiences abroad, but
saved me a few bucks in guided tours as well. Furthermore, the app allows users to access the Wikipedia
pages associated with points of interest by clicking on the pop-up information
bar in the camera view screen. This is a neat feature that cuts out a step for
those interested in learning about a neighborhood or monument before visiting
it. I was able to access and read the article about The Shrine Auditorium
simply by pointing my phone in the general direction of it while in the camera
view screen and clicking on the information bar that popped up. I also found
some interesting local points of interest that I had never heard of, like a
Victorian-style house called the Machell-Seaman House, and the birthplace of a
former U.S. presidential candidate. Also, the car-finder feature worked great
and could be really useful, for example by “parking” in front of your hotel
before a day of exploring so you can find your way back, like a high-tech trail
of breadcrumbs.
Cons: It’s $2, which is difficult to justify in spite of how
cool the app is when there are viable free options like the Trip Advisor City
Guide app, which incorporates useful travel information other than just points
of interest, like local restaurants and hotels. The “guiding” feature, which
allows you to choose a point of interest from either a list, or from the camera
view overlay screen, is difficult to follow. Although the GPS locations of the
points I tried (The Shrine and Tommy Trojan) seemed quite accurate, trying to
follow the spinning arrow on-screen was a little tough. It reminded me of
playing an objective-based video game where, when you are lost, you can click a
button and your next objective will ping and a small arrow will appear on the
screen, pointing to the objective without any regard for obstacles (like
buildings and traffic stops) in your way. Furthermore, the app does have a lot
of points of interest registered, 1427 in Los Angeles alone, but doesn’t point
out other useful information for travelers, like restaurants and hotels.
Overall: This is a pretty cool app. There are a few
shortcomings, and I was already familiar with the area I tested it in, but I’d
like to try it out next time I’m out of the country. I give it 4 out of 5
stars.
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