Turns out, I can take it with me after all. Whether I'm wheeling through a vacation or trekking to nowhere special, I don't have to sacrifice techie enlightenment. Firefox browser - the only way to do it - lets me customize toolbars to my needs. And wherever I am, I'm connected the way I want to be. Even better, the new add-ons make tech-savvy travel as easy as installing my USB drive - it's all right there. See for yourself:
FareFirst: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2040/
FareFirst add-on allows you to monitor prices and availability of flights in both domestic and international markets. Fares are updated three times daily on weekdays, once a day on weekends. And the rating system indicates if a particular flight is near its record historical low price. Awesome!
Advanced Travel: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3375/
Advanced Travel is another fare shopping tool, but it allows you to compare data from multiple online sources. It queries sites, aggregates the data and returns the results in one tidy webpage. Talk about useful for shopping while on the road.
LookLocal Maps - https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/4322/
LookLocal Maps provides driving directions, mapping locations and searches for local products and services. You can also get local traffic data through reports and camera monitoring. Check out the *Explore Vacation Spots* tab! Stellar!
1-ClickWeather - https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1035/
1-ClickWeather transfers instant weather reports for your particular geolocation with up to five days of forecasting data. It also provides access to weather videos, Doppler radar, and satellite imaging. I love the customized lifestyle content - like their brilliant Pollencasts. Damn allergies.
WindFox - https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3236/
WindFox displays wind and weather data for all the top surfing spots - score! If your favorite surf spot isn't tracked, simply email the developers and they'll add it in for you. If you spend any time surfing, wakeboarding, kitesurfing or boogie boarding this handy-dandy add-on is suh-weet.
gTranslate - https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/918/
I don't know what I would do without gTranslate. I travel to foreign places, and it's a relief to have translation software built into my browser. This add-on uses Google's translation service, which covers most foreign language conversions. It auto detects the language of the page I'm on and converts on the fly. Supacool!
Skyhook Wireless Loki - https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2306/
This killer app essentially turns your laptop into a virtual GPS device. It leverages Skyhook's Wi-Fi positioning system to determine your physical location and then provides search results relevant to your location. This is a great tool for locating restaurants, bar and movie theaters in a foreign locale. Love it!
JiWire Wi-Fi Toolbar - https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1285/
This funky little toolbar finds and locates wireless networks in your vicinity. It currently monitors over 92000 verified public hotspots in 115 countries. If you do any work while traveling it's nice to know you're never far from the web.
SuperPages - https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/800/
Everybody knows SuperPages. Their interface allows you to perform local searches for products and services from within your Firefox browser. You can highlight text on the page and search with a single click for local results relating to that text. You can even search nationally, by state, or by city. Nice…very nice.
JaJah Web Activated Telephony - https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2577/
This app is like Skype for your browser - it adds telephony capability to Firefox. Regardless of your telephone service plan, you can call through the JaJah network anywhere in the world for less than $0.02 per minute. This add-on has saved me a ton of money - you can even try it out for the first five minutes free!
Exch Currency Converter - https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1747/
This is a currency conversion tool that feeds off of Yahoo! Finance. It gives quick access to currency rates, as well as historical currency performance data. If you plan on visiting numerous countries in one vacation, this sweet tool will save you time and money. I use it to sidestep dodgy currency conversion services.
Steve Yonge,
Freelance Travel Writer