Ever wonder if a mobile app can give wings to your travel itch!!
For all adventure travelers, the app Walk the Distance could be a savior during this lockdown only if you are an iPhone user.:-)
Well for the beginners, Appalachian Trail is a hiking trail in the Eastern United States extending between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine.
This app primarily lets you experience the AT trail virtually based on the number of steps you complete over the day.
What Is Walk the Distance?
This iOS app is created in a way that, it will track your phone’s pedometer or any step counter connected with your phone followed by mapping those steps with the 3500km long AT hiking trail or any other place you would like to virtually visit, which you can select from the menu. What is more exciting is the way you will crossing away virtual signposts, involving shelters, scenic points and all the virtual people who are currently on the app giving you the feel of traveling with the group.
Isn’t it thrilling that you are satiating your hiking pleasures by simply walking inside your home? Essentially, even if you are moving from one room to the other, you are moving ahead on the AT trail at least some distance.
It’s a simple app, which is linked to any of our fitness apps and tracks the number of steps completed in a day. It then maps distance traveled by you, as captured in your fitness app to the miles on AT and put your profile pin there.
All you have to do is like any other Ios app, install it, log in, allow permissions from Walk the Distance, and get going to Appalachian Trail.
Isn’t it cool!! iPhone users, what are you waiting for? Download today and start your hiking adventures.
Android folks!! Don’t be disappointed, it should be soon this year on the play store:-)
Recently, ghoomophirosisters came across “Adobe Spark”, which is an easy-to-use online designing platform for making designs your social media and video stories look creative and professional.
Adobe Spark Postcard Template already has so many designs which can easily be manipulated according to will. You need not have any knowledge of graphic designing to use it. We went with the hit and trial method and had no expertise in programming or designing, but even then after a few minutes of tinkering with the software, we understood the basics of designing and were able to create not only postcards and brochures but a quick video too.
Since we have a travel blog, we chose the Postcard Template because it is the most traveler-friendly. Firstly, we can use it on the go because it requires nothing more than a laptop and mouse. Adobe Spark Postcard Template can be used to turn any photograph into a postcard and you can choose a theme based on your liking. We are very fond of vintage postcards so we used a theme accordingly. This template already has so many available themes and options that you do not need to start designing from scratch. Moreover, we were hesitant about trying it because we didn’t even know where to start but once we started using it, we realized that it is a step-by-step process. The template takes care of the hard parts itself while allowing you to choose the design, colors, text, and placement. It is a very easy thing to do and here is how you can use it too:
1.Pick the frame or size:
Do you want it to be landscape or portrait? For banners and social media images, the landscape is good but Instagram is more portrait friendly. Choose according to your needs.
2.What theme do you want?
There are so many options available and all you need to do is see what clicks with your style.
3.Choose the image
Postcards are not complete without an epic picture adorning it. We chose the most memorable pictures from our travel to use as a postcard. The entire purpose of making our postcard was that it resonated our experience and was not just store-bought.
4.Text style and font
The Text in a postcard is very important so choose carefully. You can customize the size, color, and font of the text according to your wishes to make it pop.
5.Download and print
Once we were happy with the entire design, we took a print out of the postcard.
The best tip we can give about using Adobe Spark Postcard Template is to experiment. Spend some time trying to figure out what looks good before just going along with a basic design. Make it stand out. Crop or zoom, add a filter, change designs, try different themes just to ensure that the final file makes you happy. It is quite a professional platform for graphic designing meant for beginners so use it to your advantage.
Asus launched its series of Zenfone 4- Zenfone 4, Zenfone 4 Pro, Zenfone Max Pro, Zenfone Max and finally, Zenfone Selfie targeted specifically at the selfie fans of this age. How much it has succeeded in making the perfect phone for selfies that you’ll find out from the review below. Zenfone 4 selfie (Dual-camera) priced at just Rs. 14,999 sets out to compete with other phones like Moto G5S, Oppo A57, Vivo Y66, Lenovo K8 Note and Nokia 6 etc. Though the price is suitable for a lot of people but does the quality deliver the name?
Looks and Designs
The mobile has a metallic design with a lightweight body. The front screen has a 5.5-inch HD display which is nothing marvellous and just as common in other lower-priced phones. At least it has Corning Gorilla Glass screen and a 2.5d contour. The phone looks pretty decent and has balanced dimensions. It also has capacitive Android navigation keys but they are not backlit. On the side, it also has the dual nano SIM-card slot and another MicroSD card slot which is better than having a hybrid slot.
Dual Front-Camera setup
This is the major highlighted feature of Zenfone 4 Selfie. The dual front-camera setup with the primary sensor having a resolution of 20-megapixel with aperture f/2.0, and the secondary 8-megapixel sensor of aperture f/2.4 also has a wide-angle lens with a field view of 120 degrees. The front-cameras let you take standard as well as wide-angled selfies. Zenfone 4 Selfie also has the DSLR-like Bokeh effect added to the portrait mode. It allows the person or object to be in focus while blurring out the background. After clicking a few pictures I came to the conclusion that when outdoors, the standard selfie mode is better because the wide-angled one just looks washed out and has lower quality. The same can be said when I tried clicking pictures in portrait mode in a selfie. It was okay with the back camera but the selfie pictures in standard mode are just normal while the wide-angled ones have a terrible quality and look. Comparing with the shots that I took inside, the standard photo looks decent but the portrait mode does a fabulous job putting the focus and adding a beauty effect. Yet, the wide-angled shots put the other person slightly out of focus and it shows when you zoom into the picture.
The Zenfone 4 Selfie also has an LED flash to help click pictures in low-lighting conditions. The phone also has a beautification mode that allows you to add ten levels of beautified features to the photograph. The rear camera is also quite decent and able to take nice shots in daylight or in close-up where it shows the colour and texture in detail. But the night-shots are just gone up for a toss.
Performance Review:
The phone is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 octa-core SoC. It has 4 GB RAM and 64-Gb onboard storage which is normal for a phone of this price range. It ensures a smooth performance but there are still phones with a more updated processor with similar price in the market. The phone has an Android 7.1.1 Nougat operating system.
Another good thing is that the phone doesn’t have many inbuilt applications floating around. Just some basic Google apps like documents, calendar, clock, Drive, Photos, Play Music, Maps and Messages. Though there are other apps as well such as Asus WebStorage, Go2pay and Weather, they can easily be uninstalled
Overall verdict:
With average to decent battery life (it has a 3000mAh battery) and smooth functioning apart from if you’re using the phone intensively in which case it lags a little and the back of it warms up, it is a good phone. The camera does live up to its name, so if you are selfie-obsessed, it is the right phone for you. For YouTubers and live streamers, the beautify feature of the camera comes in handy.
But if you aren’t that much into pictures, there are many other phones in the market with better performances and other features with the same price range.
Technology is brimming up with new inventions and specs constantly in this world with new ideas and products every new phase making us more advanced. As a matter of fact how much if it helps us is a thought for another day but today we bring you another marvel of the technology world which has been quite prominent since its arrival but has risen to fame recently.
With the rising popularity of Smartphones and diminishing fame of yesterday years, feature phones are setting the market, there’s another player in the game with much better specs and loves attributes: – TABLETS!
Tablets are more preferable for their gigantic size which helps the user to have a better multimedia experience and gaming usage with humongous battery life. Asus has been quite topping the list in A game and today we bring another product of its too light: – Asus Zenpad 3S 10 LTE.
This new beast by Asus has just been revealed this year and already has created a lot of buzz with its larger than life attributes. Formerly, tablets were just a simple medium with less functionality. But now Asus has raised up the stakes and given the Zenpad 3S 10 so many wonderful features, it is clearly blowing our mind away!
Screen Specification
Let’s be honest, people thought the screen size for Mi Max to be humongous but Zenpad 3S 10 boasts a 9.7-inch screen with a 2k resolution! It is just a beautiful revelation for movie enthusiasts and gamers who can now enjoy their multimedia and games at such a bigger and better format. The screen just screams for attention and with that big size, it gets what it wants.
Design
The zenpad 3S 10 is made of exquisite metallic texture and diamond edge cuts which make the zenpad sleek and slender. The tablet is easy to hold and doesn’t slip away due to the friction of the back metallic structure. Even after packing this beast with so many features and wonderful hardware, the mainframe just weighs about 430 grams! Talk about engineering.
Sound System
The Asus zenpad 3S 10 comes with outstanding sound quality and boasting a high quality seered texture through Sonicmaster 3.0 and 7.1 channel virtual sound. Just when you think it doesn’t get any better, they have also packed some slick features for the headphones user too. With dts headphones, X and its-HD premium sound Asus zenpad are rocking your world with its mind-boggling sound system.
Processor and speed
The most sell out feature of a tablet is its ability to handle intense gaming hours with humongous storage capacity. With 32 GB internal on board, you’ll be able to download as many games as you could possibly fathom. As far as the performance is concerned, the hexacore processor of Qualcomm S650 is more than enough to keep things smooth. An extra 4GB LPDDR3 Ram is gonna spice things up a little bit and make the user interface run as fast as the stream through a valley.
Battery Capacity
With so many things on board to perform with, the juice on the tablet should be as good as its other features. But, don’t you worry! Cause Asus zenpad 3S 10 has also covered this aspect easily for you. The mainframe battery comes with a gargantuan size of 7800 mAh which also comes accompanied with Quick charge 3.0 which only makes the job much easier to fill up the enormous battery to the brim as fast as possible.
Camera
The main off put off many tablets has been the degrading quality of the camera. It has been a rising issue with Apple iPad. But it does not seem much of a worry to Asus zenpad 3S 10 becomes it comes with decent cameras of 8 Megapixel in the back and 5 Megapixel at the front. The rear camera is good in low light as well as optically stabilized. The front camera churns out beautiful selfies. However, the giant size of the tablet makes it a little less friendly for clicking selfies with it.
Network
This tablet is also equipped with 4G LTE network which can also support your jio Sims! (it costs now)
As we were packing our bags for our treks to Tungnath, like always, we were worried about emergency water, and then I was introduced to Lifestraw portable water bottles, which are on-the-go portable filters. We were surprised to experience their efficiency as the filter was able to remove water-borne bacteria by 99.9% from the waters of lakes, rivers or streams, that passed during our travel, thereby making the water safe to drink and since then it has become one of the must-have especially during our hiking and trekking trips. To test the quality of water filtered by Lifestraw, we used water from the pond, mud water, river water and ice, which later melted. Though water tasted little different due to various sources, but yes, it was clean enough.
About the Product
The LifeStraw Go Bottle is simply an ordinary LifeStraw purifier integrated into a screw-top water bottle.The LifeStraw is fitted to the lid and can easily be removed and even used as a standalone filtering straw without using the water bottle at all.
Brand: Lifestraw
Colour: Blue
Includes: One bottle with filter
Material: Tritan, food grade plastic
Filter cleans up to 1000L of water, down to 0.2 microns
Features carabiner for convenience
No chemicals used
Quantity: 650ml
Price-1295 INR
The bottle doesn’t store filtered water. Instead, it filters the water as we drink water, which passes through the filter. Apparently, it requires the force of suction to clean the water.It uses the simplest filtration technology, where-in water is passed through several layers of extremely fine membranes. This filtration helps it to remove the virus, parasites by 99.9%. However, it is unable to filter sea water due to high dissolved salt content. It is made of BPA-free plastic known as Tritan which is being known for its ruggedness and hence bottle offers long term durability, especially in harsh climates. Due to its filtration process, the bottle does require replacement of filter, but it has the capacity to filter 1000L of water. In fact, a bottle does whatever is being promised at this reasonable price.
Life-straw Portable Water Bottle is well recommended as you are ready to bag-pack for wilderness, hiking, trekking or on road trips. This is a quality survivor tool, especially at the places where finding drinking water is a challenge. Kudos to the team, who came up with this innovation and brought the breakthrough in water filtration, which if tapped properly can help millions to drink quality water.
Add the 1Life-straw water bottle to your traveler’s kit today and contribute towards conservation of nature by avoiding littering around of plastic water bottles.
LeEco launches it latest smartphone Le 2 recently. While unboxing it, I realize its biggest advantage for travelers lie me. Pre-loaded content and camera quality. This blog aims to pen down our hands-on experience with LeEco Le 2
The smartphone comes with a sporting new design and is available in Rose Gold Color. It has minimal bezels on the front.
Moving on to LeEco Le 2 Design, and hardware specifications, smartphone comes with 5.5 inch display panel and 1080×1920 pixels resolution. LeEco Le 2 Display packs a Full HD, IPS LCD display panel. The top is protected by a Corning Gorilla Glass 4 screen protection, which is layered smoothly. Smartphone comes with Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 MSM8976, clocked at 1.8GHz and this is coupled with 3GB of RAM space. It offers 32 GB internal storage too. Right underneath the camera panel on the rear side is the fingerprint sensor, which can be used to authenticate the handset. Handset comes with removable cover to access sim card and SD slots. Buttons on the sides to control volume, power off are precise and add to the looks of phone.
Best part is the primary camera which is 16 MP, placed in the center above the fingerprint scanner, and the front camera which is 8 MP. Le 2 uses OV 16880, Omnivision’s 2015 image sensor. Le 2 preserves the color details quite accurately and ensures good pictures.
LeEco Le 2 Smartphone Audio supports USB-C-port-powered headphones. LeEco has revolutionized the smartphone audio via CDLA (Continual Digital Lossless Audio) technique. CDLA not only increase the rate of data transfer but also ensures cleaner audio transfer. This way, smartphone supports good audio quality.
Moving to LeEco Le 2 software, it runs on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow). All capacitive buttons are backlit, drop-down notification panel will only read the latest notifications. Handset comes with many pre-installed apps like LeView, Live and LeVidi. LeVidi brings best videos from Hungama, YuppTV and Eros Now. Live is for watching live television. With so much pre-loaded content, phone can be widely accepted by solo traveler community. Performance level is high as Hexagon 680 DSP ensures background applications run smoothly.
Needless to say, the value proposition LeEco L2 brings in Rs.11,999, is indeed remarkable and will soon revolutionize the budget phone segment. With its vibrant display, CDLA audio technology, great content, affordable pricing, handset is bound to create buzz in India market. It shall be available on Flipkart from 28th June and Flash sale has already started. Don’t miss the opportunity to grab it.
As an avid traveler, the biggest challenge for me to find the best deals and minimize my monetary losses. While going for various travel discussions, biggest travel hack I talk about is finding deals, coupons, redeeming points etc. In this digital shopping era, where we want to do everything online, Couponz guru is a fresh initiative in discounted coupons area. Though there are many in this domain, but why I liked this one is for its ease of use and many, which you would realize as I go further in this article.
Layout/Ease to use
Couponz guru has almost all categories of coupons starting from Online shopping coupons, Travel coupons & Restaurant coupons. This exhaustive list of coupons acts as differentiating factor amongst others. Bank offers on a deal site is a rare sight, but coupounzguru has this as well, which is delight to eyes. The coupons & deals are all put down in a vertical order is easy to read them and choose the coupon you looking for. At the end of the page there is a section called Store List that will take you to a page where all the brands they have are available.The best feature I liked is the details about how to use the coupons. This description is important as most of the time user tends to loose interest once they get lost. But the detailed description helps them to navigate site properly. Once you choose the coupon, coupon details are revealed. You can activate the same by copying it.Another thing that works is, all coupon works, unlike few sites, where it shows expired coupons too.
Last but not least, I agree with their tag line, which says-“ A Penny Saved Is A Penny Earned”.
During my regular research and satiating quest for travel domain, I bumped into this interesting start-up called toroots.. What caught my eyes was its name, or you may say name at first sight;). My curiosity rose to the extent, that could not resist to call them up and I am glad I did.
ToRoots , is a concept, where-in they are redefining travel landscape of India to start with and take it to next level. The team is still into development phase and working relentlessly to make this concept successful. Their prime objective is to encourage experiential travelling. They are acting as mediators to bridge the gap between who want to experience, and who creates experiences.
So whether you are a person who seeks thrilling adventures or a history buff who craves culture, you’ll most definitely find your pick because there portfolio seems very promising covering experiences from all genres of travel. Some of them would be like:
Dancing around with a million fireflies at a riverside camp in a secluded village
Finding a sanctuary in the middle of nowhere, amidst the mighty ranges of the Himalayas where you can sleep under a sheet of stars
Living and breathing the authentic traditions of Goa, on an island village, away from the bustling beaches
