Colosseo, where gladiatorial games were held (photo by AMYLINE QUIEN CHING)

Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Murphy’s Law is every first-time traveler’s nightmare and taking it to heart is not some freaky way of looking at the glass as only half-full but just making sure that you even have a glass left, never mind the water. 

Thus when preparing for a backpacking trip alone across Europe, I had the Girl Scout motto “Laging Handa” emblazoned all over my version of a backpack: a luggage, a hand-carry and a bag. Besides a ton of clothing and personal necessities, I had with me a flashlight; a Swiss Army knife; packs of biscuits, chips and instant noodles; two heavy phrasebooks; some city maps and train diagrams; guidebooks; a laptop; and a thick wad of paper that listed a number of hotels in Paris and Rome.

It was a bit much for a backpacker to carry, something which the hapless men in the train stations didn’t waste time telling me in between huffs and puffs as they heaved my luggage up the overhead compartment. But for someone whose everyday bag outweighs three kilos of rice, the idea of carrying only a backpack for two whole weeks is pure suicide, either by hypothermia from severe shortage of clothing or by severe spinal cord damage. And it was only after this year’s Nokia Summit in Stuttgart, Germany that I realized that you don’t need to be “heavily-armed” to defy Murphy’s Law. You just need an internet connection and a phone.

Virtual blessing

Strike while the “irony” is hot. This, perhaps, cheekily and succinctly describes the growing popularity of mobile phone applications. As technology spreads out, gadgets shrink. And while major programs are still PC-based, mobile phone applications are slowly but steadily becoming the by-word. In fact, PC applications like Word, Excel and Adobe have already found themselves joining the “phonewagon.” 

Just this year, Nokia opened its Ovi Store, which features application downloads for Nokia phone users. Most are for free while other more complicated ones can be downloaded for a fee. To build content, Nokia closely worked with developers all over the world in creating one-of-a-kind mobile programs, which they presented during the summit.

And to my dismay and utter frustration, half of what I brought for my backpacking trip can be easily replaced by applications available in Nokia’s Ovi store. The phrasebooks that I bought, for instance, can be easily substituted with the Phrasebook 18 in 1 Lite. The phone application did not only have French and Italian but also German, Dutch and Portuguese. Having one on your phone would save you a lot of wild hand gestures and panicky map-pointing scenes while touring Paris, whose massive subway and bus system was even more convoluted than the Gardens of Versailles. It would also come in handy when you tour the different piazzas in Rome, where locals are not as well-versed in English.

A couple of applications in Ovi now have European maps that you can download when you need to get around the city. It would have been a great companion during my tour of the Schlossplatz, Stuttgart’s Palace Square and the Old Palace, whose name I still can't pronounce.

I personally would like to get hold of this year’s Calling All Innovators grand prize winner for the Apps on Maps category— Ground Guidance. The competition was organized by Nokia to generate innovative mobile applications and solutions that make life easier. Ground Guidance would be a big help especially to people who are into mountain climbing and camping. The application can give you directions even when there is no defined map or even a road for that matter like when you are in the middle of a forest.

There are also guidebooks in Ovi that will help you find anything from the cheapest hotel in Paris to the best pizza place in Rome. You will know that the Louvre has free entrance every first Sunday of the month or that the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris has one of the best stained glass art display in the world. It’ll also be easy to find out where the best gelato in Rome is—San Crispino. The ice cream shop is a short walking distance from the Trevi fountain. And on your way there, you would find an Italian leather shop that sells coin purses made of real leather for only P300.

Qype, for instance, gives Nokia phone users access to juicy consumer reviews of restaurants and stores while the Lonely Planet mobile takes those indispensable travel snippets from the press to your phone. Having these applications in your phone definitely beat lugging around that pile of hotel and restaurant profile printouts across three countries.

But don’t wait until you are already traveling before you download all these guidebooks. Even in leisure trips, the forewarned is forearmed. It pays to read up on the countries you visit because you would get tidbits that could make touring headache-free.

For instance, not all tourists would know about the Paris Museum Pass, a card that gives you unlimited access to museums in Paris or the Paris Visite card, which gives you unlimited rides to Parisian buses and trains. Guidebooks would also tell you that saying “bonjour” can get you that window seat that you requested or that “s’il vous plait” before asking for directions would get you the help you need.

Without a guidebook, you will also never know that tickets to the Palatine Hills, Roman Forum and the Colosseo must be purchased at the entrance of the Roman Forum or that an early morning trip to St. Peter’s Basilica is a must if you want to avoid the long lines.

Catching time

Unlike Manila, European transportation system runs like clockwork. Every trip is down to the second. One missed train could send shockwaves through your entire itinerary.  I learned this the hard way in Paris, when I mistakenly read a different departure time for a train to Giverny, where the famed Gardens of Monet is located. The next train would leave by lunchtime, totally conflicting with another scheduled trip. Suffice it to say, the only Monet Garden I saw in Paris was a painting. 

Thus, a must-have application for travelers is one that keeps track of time in several time zones. One of the applications in Ovi that I really liked was the World Traveler. This nifty program has world clocks, weather forecasts, currency calculator, and maps. You don’t need to do the math every time you look at your watch or shop for a moneychanger that offers the best rates. Shopping would also be a breeze since converting is easy.

Flights is another great tool for first-time travelers especially if you are country-hopping. This application supposedly allows you to check the status of your flights and gives flight alerts in case of cancellations and delays. There is also the Flight Finder, which can give you a list of the cheapest flight available in the market. I haven’t used these two though since I took the train but if you are flying in, it’s worth the download.

After 14 days of backbreaking train travel, I and my luggage came home limping and battle-scarred. (My luggage had a broken wheel and several scratches). And while I had all the armaments to fight off Murphy’s predilection for doomsday predictions, I still came out the loser. 

Most who have jet-set across the globe say that traveling beats sitting through a week of history lessons in class or an hour of foreign phrases with a language professor. And it’s true. One day of traveling is a whole semester of grammar lessons, exercise on manners, Math problems and putting the good ol’ street-smarts to practice. But for me, I learned something that I should have took to heart back in preschool. In life and most especially in backpacking, the best things do indeed come in small (digitized) packages.