Connectivity

Of course, while travelling, you rely on your phone for logistics, entertainment and communication. I’ve been impressed with the level of 5G/4G and WiFi connectivity – there have been very few, brief cases where we didn’t have signal.

This has resulted in a few interesting scenarios:

• In Hamburg, Dua Lipa tickets for Wembley stadium June 2025 went on sale. Aurélie was glued to her phone whilst in Planten en Blomen until she’d successfully secured some (leading to much rejoicing).
• Today, I’ve watched with a weird mix of horror and contentment as the awful Crowdstrike/Windows outage hits the global economy. It shouldn’t affect VDX.tv directly, but is nevertheless a bit of a concern – not much I can do about it…and it’s clearly not affecting the far simpler Latvian train system which is running like clockwork (there may be a good reason for that…😉)
• Also today, the school released its After School Clubs timetable for booking – it’s not normally this early. This is always a bit sharp elbow time – in previous terms we’ve been up at 6.30am on two laptops to secure the specific piano lesson times that fit with our plans… – so it felt a bit surreal booking capoeira lessons on the school app while on a former Soviet diesel train as it crosses the border into Latvia! 🤣

That also makes me think of the importance of apps.

• The Essentials
  • Rail Planner – for the interrail pass, and booking tickets
  • Citymapper – works in pretty much every capital, at least
  • Google Maps – for exploring, and finding suitable restaurants etc
  • Booking.com – I’m a bit conflicted, I find booking.com a bit of an awkward middle-man. It’s super easy at the booking stage, but can be a hindrance for check-in and payment. Next time(!), I’ll try to do more direct with the establishment.
  • Getyourguide – a good list of possible activities in a city, although it often feels you’re being fleeced for a second-class option and you’d be better going direct (and checking more objective reviews!).
• Region-specific
  • Train apps for notifications and replanning – DB Navigator, SJ.se have been vital.
  • The Tallink Silja app for the ferry is essential
  • Uber/Lime type apps for different cities. Viggo in Copenhagen, Bolt in Estonia, Tuul seems big in Stockholm.

• Amenities
  • Footpath – for planning running routes
  • Jetpack – for wordpress blogposts!
  • Workflowy – my favourite to-do list app, so simple and flexible. All the plan went in here.
  • Dropbox – all the tickets, seat reservations etc went into offline synced folders
  • yr.no – the best weather app, without a doubt
• Random ones
  • Tivoli for Tivoli Gardens