Nokia Takes 'Lonely Planet' Mobile

by Jarrett Martineau | August 20, 2008 at 02:26 pm

1124 views | 4 Recommendations | 16 comments

Now this is a very smart idea. Paired with a GPS-enabled 3G mobile device such as, oh let's just say an iPhone, travelling to new places will never be the same: no more stopping strangers to ask directions, you'll be able to do it all by yourself, on your mobile, while remaining completely isolated from the people and the world around you. You'll never have to talk to anyone! How...um...great is that?

Then again, imagine if, instead, you could actually use an interactive mobile map that allowed travellers to create user-generated mobile guide books with shared recommendations, travel tips, reviews, and favourite destinations? Crowd-sourced backpacking? I'm sure it's already in the works.

Tired of lugging a big travel book on vacation? Some Nokia phone users won't have to. They'll be able to download Lonely Planet travel guides directly onto their mobile handsets.
On Tuesday Nokia announced a deal with the travel book publisher Lonely Planet to sell maps and city guides to Nokia Maps 2.0 users. The service will initially allow users to download information for more than 100 cities, with more destinations to be added.

Each download, which costs 7.99 euros, or about $11.75, provides maps with directions and some background on important sites.

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World_Groove

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 18:30 on August 20th, 2008

Nice !

jayr_patron

at 19:32 on August 20th, 2008

Anybody got feedback on N95's real-time GPS? Probably works well in only selected countries.

AnchiMe

at 01:04 on August 21st, 2008

Nokia8810 is my first mobile phone and my favority!

AnchiMe has contributed a photo to this story.

Summer59 (not verified)

at 01:37 on August 21st, 2008

Such a great idea - Nokia is onto something with this one.

The N95's real time GPS has gotten great reviews. Highly recommend you check http://shop.nokia.co.uk

Decrease

at 02:18 on August 21st, 2008

This is the newly built headquarters of Nokia-Siemens Belgium in Herentals, about 15 minutes east of Antwerp. Architecturally quite a nice building.

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voyagedelautrecotedelocean

at 04:19 on August 21st, 2008

We juste arrived in Ecuador and were disapointed by the only guide book of the country we had, the very french Routard... But the central pace of this marvelous place was a big pleasure. It'called Vilcabamba, in the south of the country. It was almost the end of our trip...

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Jordan Yerman

at 04:35 on August 21st, 2008

Guide books have other purposes besides guiding you, though. Your smartphone wouldn't make a very good pillow for that train-station bench. As jayr_patron mentions, though, I guess it depends on which cities are covered, and if you really want to drag around a $600 smartphone as a tourist. As for crowd-powered backpacking, look no further than the thorn-tree, though it's rife with snark, weird spam and this-was-cheaper-in-Thailand nonsense.

Departure Lounge
Share your travel information, advice, hints and tips.

It's the good, the bad, and the ugly of user-generated content: some genuine gems in there, but one must be patient, especially when looking for tips in less-traveled regions: another traveler must not only have already been there and done that, but also posted it in the forum.

The Traveling Pig

at 07:41 on August 21st, 2008

The Traveling Pig has contributed a photo to this story.

Emile Baizel

at 09:47 on August 21st, 2008

I took this photo of Spain from a Lonely Planet book in the Madrid airport as I was waiting for my connecting flight to Malaga. It was all I really needed to be able to know where I was going and so I saved the extra weight in my backpack of buying the book.

Emile Baizel has contributed a photo to this story.

LChan

at 21:04 on August 21st, 2008

This shot was taken during our trip to Prague in April, '08, of course with the aide of our trusty Lonely Planet guide.

LChan has contributed a photo to this story.

edu.

at 08:44 on August 22nd, 2008

Nokia logo + Photoshop ;)

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real7xy

at 13:06 on August 22nd, 2008

Exhibition at the Nokia Headquater in Espoo Finnland visited September 2007.

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aust073

at 05:17 on August 23rd, 2008

well... actually this is a company phone, and i'm not using it anymore.

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ahuque

at 19:13 on August 23rd, 2008

http://www.flickr.com/photos/asuh23/1248575767/

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jonathanawhite

at 02:29 on September 6th, 2008

Photo taken during British Airways flights from London to Tripoli. Myself and the friend featured (Mark) in the photo had a fantastic 10 days in Libya. The trip was split between Tripoli and Ghadames.
Whilst in Tripoli I visited the Old City (Medina) with its souqs (markets) and mosques, a World War 2 War Cemetery, the National Museum, and met up with a friend of one of my work colleague’s who is currently living there. I also went on excursions outside Tripoli to visit two Roman cities (Sabratha and Leptis Magna) and the coastal resort of Janzour with its catacombs and tomb paintings.
The second half of the holiday was spent 600 kilometres south of Tripoli in Ghadames where I visited the Old City. Ghadames is located on the northwest fringe of the Sahara Desert, so I was able to have a camel ride, and watch the sun setting over the sand dunes.
As always the Lonely Planet guide was an essential reference tool.
Jonathan

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Woopoo

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 13:33 on September 11th, 2008

Jarrett Martineau, I like this story. It's good stuff.