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Even if you’re not a globe-trotting road warrior, this multi-functional conglomeration of useful tools is worth some room on your mobile assistant. It will give you a myriad of information at your fingertips, as any good pocket concierge should do.

The program offers four icons at the bottom of every page that include Cities, Trips, Tools, and Globe. From these buttons, you can access the various functions of this application, which include Cities, Time, Weather, Trip Assistant, 3D Globe, Flight Search, Tools, and Geo Games.

Traveler can appear on your desktop as a Today screen add in displaying your choice of cities tabbed with weather information. Click on a city, and a detailed day forecast appears. You can then display a five day forecast using the arrows in the upper right corner. Tap on the weather panel, and a menu with all the other functions appears. Accordingly, you can effectively access and control all the functions of the program right from the desktop plug-in, which I heartily applaud.

Starting with Cities, you may select from a comprehensive list of thousands of cities around the world to track time and weather information. Of course you can change these as your itinerary or interest dictates. Note that city choices must have an airport code. A menu button allows you to add or subtract cities, create a meeting, calculate tips, go to Google maps, and update photos of the cities.

An info button gives useful information about the destination and links to other sources. Traveler features a rotating photo gallery depicting scenes for each city. It is also possible to change the layout of the city display.

In Trip Assistant, your travel itinerary information displays the most current item at the top of the list. Tap on Add Items, and a screen appears with the following item choices: Flight, Hotel, Train, Car Rental, Cruise, Bus, Meeting, Activity, and Note. It allows you to load data pertaining to a trip as well.

The Tools icon displays a grid with nine choices: Tipping, Units, Flights, Clothing, Currencies, Geo Game, Phrase Book, Time, and Options.

The tip calculator lets you set the percentage and will calculate the amount each should pay when splitting the bill. Customary tipping practice information is part of the city information in case you are in doubt about how much to tip.

Units is an indispensible calculator for conversions of temperature, area, speed, weight, volume, pressure, and length.

The flights button allows you to look up flight information and record it. What amazed me was that the data come from the OAG (Official Airline Guide), which is a very expensive item to subscribe to. But, in SPB Traveler, the information is free. I recall another popular travel planner that required you to subscribe to the OAG, and it was about $99 annually. All information is presented in local time so that there is never any confusion about appointments.

The Clothing function gives comparable European, US, and metric sizes and allows you to keep a record of the measurements for any number of individuals. What a great shopping tool.

Tap on the Currencies button to bring up the currency converter functions. You can update the data before each use.

If you are sitting around in want of some amusement that is not only entertaining but informative, tap on the Geo Games tab to test your geographic knowledge of cities, capitals, and flags.

Traveler also includes a handy phrase book to get you out of scrapes or perhaps into them. The phrases are grouped into 14 categories such as Apologies, Gratitude, Time, Weather, and Introductions. You can pair any of 17 different language choices. It is possible to obtain more phase books from SPB.

The Time Converter button displays the local time for any designated city and keeps a record of your appointments by local time in that city so that you don’t get your time zones mixed up. This could really save your bacon on occasion.

Tapping the Options button will allow you to change settings preferences for Units, Sync, Currency, and Caching of city images, city guides, satellite images, and flight searches.

The 3D Globe button at the bottom of the screen brings up an automated display showing the cities you have selected for your trip with weather and time information. It will also display night and day progression around the world, which is always fascinating.

SPB Traveler offers a great collection of travel aids that is like having a travel agent in your pocket. You really shouldn’t leave home without it. In fact, it can be useful even to a total couch potato. It seems that most SPB products sell for $29.95, and Traveler is no exception. But, when you consider the cost of a live subscription to the OAG every year, this application is a real bargain for a mere 790 Rubles.

Tim Hillebrand (105 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook