Category: Hospitality & Leisure

Augmented reality transforming travel

Finding yourself in unfamiliar territory can be both exciting and thoroughly intimidating. Anyone who gets excited at the thought of traveling without a clue augmented reality is the new thing for travel.

Augmented reality is the tech that superimposes information over what you’re actually seeing. For travelers, that can mean automatically translating signs as you look at them through smart glasses. Or mobile apps that turn your phone camera into a super-scanner and overlay points of interest and nearby restaurant ratings on your immediate surroundings. Whether you’re traveling to a neighboring area or the other side of the planet, augmented reality can offer a fresh perspective.

The free Wikitude World Browser app, available for Apple, Android, Windows phones, and smart eyewear, uses cameras, accelerometers, and Internet access to display nearby restaurants, hotels, and hidden gems. DigitalTrends.com recently called Wikitude “a third eye” that’s regarded as the king of all augmented reality browsers.

Nokia’s City Lens for the Windows Phone is available for areas around the world and “overlays the best shops, restaurants, and points of interest right on your display.”Simply tap on anything that pops up to get details like hours, precise directions, and reviews. The free mTrip travel guides app also has an augmented reality function for landmarks, museums, and monuments.

Layar is another augmented reality app designed for travelers. Working across multiple platforms, Layar scans interactive print to pull up live views, videos, and multimedia. Several years ago, Lonely Planet worked with Layar to enable free scanning for its book covers.

One of the trending ways to find highly rated food and drink places nearby is Yelp Monocle What started as an Easter egg in the review site’s free app has since become a well-known menu option. Monocle opens your smartphone camera and as you move around, reviewed businesses show up onscreen in the direction they’re actually located. The results can be filtered to show restaurants, bars, or everything.

If want to figure out exactly where subway entrances are before heading out, the inexpensive Metro AR Pro app does the legwork on the spot. It shows the closest metro stops within three miles across your camera view and currently works for transit in Chicago, New York, Paris, London, Mexico, Japan, and South Korea.

Augmented reality transforms otherwise humdrum walking tours, too. In Seville, the Past View experience lets visitors don video glasses and see the city’s historical past brought to life as they wander around. Other city-specific tours also project the past onto the present, like for the inexpensive Paris, Then and Now guide for Android and Apple devices is one such App.

Several wearables s also promise hands-free augmented reality experiences. The most obvious accessory for daring technophiles willing to spend $1,500 is Google Glass. These smart specs work with a host of apps, and Google’s plan is to make Glass the perfect travel gadget.

Perhaps the most impressive Glass app for travel is Word Lens, which instantly translates foreign signs into your language as you view them. Field Trip, another top app for the glasses, displays local history, insider finds and details about architecture from local experts in the upper right-hand corner of your view.

Challenges do crop up with augmented reality tech, though. The app may rely heavily on the camera function, which can drain the battery on a smart device quickly, or it could require a constant Internet connection. One has to make sure the app is optimized for your device and do test runs before traveling with it. The best-augmented reality tech educates and entertains us effortlessly, like a local friend who also makes a great tour guide.