Each month I work with U.S. Cellular to tell you something I’m doing with my Galaxy S5 that makes my life a little easier.  Today is one of those days.

Do you have travel plans for this year?  It’s amazing how much planning can be done via a smart phone or a tablet.  It’s said the 68% of the people traveling use their devices for some part of the planning.  27% of them are booking hotels and 16% booking plane tickets.

Me?  I don’t have very many travel plans at all this year-at least not with Hubby.  Kelli and I have a few getaways planned to teach and do trunk shows.  I can tell you that when we’re out and about, our cell phones get LOTS of use.

Some of you already know that Kelli eats gluten free.  When traveling, that can be quite a challenge.  Where we eat is often influenced by the choices that come up in a Google search for the area that we are visiting.  When we traveled to Kansas City for the photo shoot for our quilt book, Country Girl Modern, Kelli’s phone lead us to Red Robin.  Living in a rural area neither of us had ate there before and neither of us knew that they offer a nice menu for those who are gluten free eaters.

Our phones have lead us to a quick bathroom stop too.

I use a GPS phone app to guide us to where we are going and I love it.  When I first started doing that Hubby was all crabby with me saying we can just do this with a map….but after a few times out, the old red neck will now say-fire up that “space phone” of yours and see if you can find an antique shop for us to check out…so I fire up the “space phone”.  We use it lots.

When Kelli and traveled to Kansas City the use of our smart phones lead us to two great cross stitch shops and to the wool rug hooking shop, American Whatever at Corbin Mill in Liberty, MO– that I’ll always remember.  Neither of us has a tablet with 4G so our traveling goes a little like this…I drive-Kelli navigates.  She typically uses both of our phones to do it.  She’ll use her phone for browsing and finding the place we want to go then she’ll program the address of the place she wants to go in my phone.

Kelli is a huge Lizzie Kate cross stitch fan.  In our area there aren’t a lot of cross stitch shops so when we were out Kelli asked if we could find a store and stop….well certainly.  We would have never been able to find the shops without our smart phones and I don’t think I would have been brave enough to navigate us to the shops if we didn’t have the GPS.

There are so many great apps for people out there who are doing more extensive traveling than we do.

If you aren’t aware, Kelli and are hosting a retreat this summer were Bonnie Hunter and I both will be teaching.  We have people coming in for states near and far.  I couldn’t help think of them and their travel plans when I was reading about some of the new apps that are out…  Gate Guru, which organizes your full travel experience – from flight and rental vehicle information, to airport amenities.  The Around Me app shows nearby restaurants, banks and more (including hospitals or emergency care centers for anyone traveling with an accident-prone family member), including directions to your destination. While you’re enjoying your vacation, Postagram keeps you in touch with loved ones. Just take a photo with the app, and for a nominal fee your message will be delivered as a mailed postcard!

With me being the homebody I am I don’t think I’ll be using any of those apps but I am betting some of the ladies traveling our way just might want to check them out.  Speaking of which we have a couple spots open for the retreat.  Feel free to email Kelli (kellijo1987@gmail.com) for more information.  We’d love to have you join us.