Top 5 Uses for an iPhone on a Road Trip

I'm sure you've all heard your grandparents talk about their three-mile walk to and from school, in the snow, uphill both ways, right? When you stop to think about it, do you think any person, no matter how old, has actually believed that they used to walk uphill both ways to get to school? Probably not.

Unless this was their school.

Of course, the "uphill both ways" story is a hyperbole, meant to exaggerate in order to prove the point that getting to school was way harder before school buses. And the thing is, we have no counterpoints once our grandparents begin complaining about how hard life was "back in the day." Because it was really hard. Walking to school? Writing in cursive? Writing at all? No thanks.

We (and by "we" I mean "people my age") happen to be lucky enough to live in an era where our GPS system confirms that, indeed, it is not uphill both ways to school. We also live in a world where people use robots to vacuum their living rooms.

Just wait until all of the Roombas become self-aware on Judgment Day. Hope you're not allergic to dust.

All kidding aside, we do live in an amazing time. So far, I feel that I have been able to keep up with the exponential increase in the capacity and complexity of technology, although I do believe one day we will be saying to our grandchildren, "We used to have to actually drive our cars." At which point they will probably continue staring at us blankly, and we will be unsure whether they are looking at us or watching a movie from a chip implanted into their corneas.

You won't even need corneas to drive cars in the future. Or hands. Or legs.

But for now, I pretty much know what's going on. I can check my email, hook up a DVD player to a TV, and, for the most part, figure out how to start a gentle wash cycle on the washing machine. But one of the most amazing pieces of technology, in my opinion, is the iPhone. Forget about what it was like to live without the Internet or cell phones (because I honestly cannot remember), but what was it like to live without smartphones? This unusual and hard-to-fathom world was reality only a handful of years of ago. But now, I have become reliant on my iPhone. And this phenomenon was extremely evident during my road trip. After all, we had planned almost nothing and managed to travel almost 4,000 miles over 8 days.

It looks a lot shorter when you look at it like this.

Having our iPhones took almost all of the "fun" out of road tripping. You know, the getting lost, getting mad, and yelling at your friends type of fun. Instead, we were able to use the time normally allotted for raising cortisol levels in the blood to play Angry Birds and look up exactly what the RV Museum and Hall of Fame at exit 353 in the middle of Louisiana was all about.

Sorry, it was actually Indiana.

So, because I am an expert at road tripping now, I am going to tell you why you should only ever road trip if you have an iPhone by discussing the top 5 uses we had for our iPhones during the road trip:

5. Staying connected with friends and work, and off each other's nerves

Remember back in the day when you would leave on vacation, and actually go on vacation? How dumb does that sound? Nowadays, we make sure that we can stay on top of our social and work lives from back home. No need to let any beach or sunshine get in the way of those TPS reports.

At least he's not wearing shoes.

And indeed, iPhones can be a culprit in this aspect, making it ever so easy to check email and keep in touch with people. However, I found that being able to stay connected, for example through Facebook, actually made the trip smoother. Why? Because it made me not realize that I was stuck in a car with the same two people for eight days straight. This is no disrespect to George or Anthony, but anytime three people are within 10 feet of each other for eight days straight, things can get on people's nerves. Cue Facebook and iMessages and tweets and blog posts, and all of a sudden you have 443 friends instead of just the two in your car.

How do I know the iPhone helped us stay off each other's nerves? Because we didn't get pissed at each other. And when we didn't want to talk to each other, what were we doing? We were on our phones:

That's Anthony on his phone. I think George is plugging his into the charger.

Sure, sometimes I would ask Anthony or George a question and wait for a response, only to realize I will never get one because they didn't hear a word I had said. But that's okay, at least we weren't trying to kill each other. Instead, they were too busy killing zombies, which brings me to the next use for the iPhone...

4. Keeping yourself occupied, and not looking at the scenery

I remember as a kid one of the most exciting parts about packing for a long trip was packing all the entertainment. Back then, though, this wasn't as easy as packing an iPhone and a charger. See, there weren't devices that could do everything really well, there were only devices that did one thing really well. In essence, this meant that you had to had to bring a bunch of stuff. You also had to prioritize and somehow guess what you'd be in the mood to do during the trip because your backpack was only so big and the things you wanted to pack were usually pretty large:

Now with Retina display.

I would always pack my Gameboy, and stuff the case with as many games as I could fit. Although, inevitably halfway through the vacation I would want to play one of the games I had left at home. Then I would bring my portable CD player (remember CDs?) as well as some type of bulky headphones with foam around the earpiece that would, without fail, start to rip and fall off after about a week of use. Of course, you had to bring actual CDs as well, which meant, once again, you had to prioritize and guess what you'd want to listen to a week later. Oh, and don't forget the batteries for both the Gameboy and CD player.

Maybe you liked to read? Well, bring a book. But what if you don't like that book? Okay, bring two books, just in case. You might want to play some games with people too, right? No problem, just bring some cards and a game or two. Like to draw or write? Bring a pad of paper and some pens. Now fit everything in your backpack.

Now find the Gameboy.

Luckily, the iPhone negates all of this hassle. In fact, the iPhone can do just about anything. Want to listen to music? No problem. Want to listen to radio that chooses songs that it knows you will like? No problem. Want to read a book? No problem. Want to draw something? No problem. Want to play an ultra-realistic, zombie-killing game, cooperatively with your friend sitting next to you? No problem.

They kind of look like Nicolas Cage zombies.

This is precisely what Anthony and George played, non-stop, whenever I was driving. I've played this game a few times on the Xbox, so I am familiar with the concept of the game. Basically, you must fend off hordes of zombies by shooting them in the head. There is actually no end to the game, just more rooms to unlock and larger hordes of zombies to kill. This was a typical conversation in my car while I was driving:

Anthony: "George come upstairs."

Five minutes of silence.

George: "Nice, should I spend 1000 and open the door?"

Anthony: "Yeah, I want to use my money to buy the better gun."

George: "Jerk...Damn I'm dying help me!"

Anthony: "George! Come on. Where are you?

George: "I'm downstairs in the room with the three windows."

Anthony: "Okay, hold on a sec."

Five more minutes of silence.

Kurt: "Yo guys look at that mountain over there!"

Five more minutes of silence.

Even though they ignored me sometimes, it was okay. It showed how well the iPhone can entertain. I have to admit, there were times where I was in my own world playing a game where a little dude flies around on a jetpack and avoids getting shot down by missiles. Anything to keep from being bored. But if we weren't playing games, we were definitely...

3. Taking pictures and videos

Back in the day, another thing you had to add the backpack was a camera and film. And if you wanted to take any videos, you'd also have to bring a camcorder:

"A what?" you may ask. That's right, you had be ready to point and shoot with something that weighed a metric ton. And since film was expensive and hard drives were tiny, you had to be pretty picky about what you were photographing. For instance, this probably would not have cut it:

With 64GB of space, why not take a picture of a store that repairs iPhones and uses a South Park-style Jesus Christ as its logo?

Here's a bold prediction I have: because so many people have iPhones, which take excellent photos and high-quality videos, souvenir stores that sell keychains and magnets will go out of business. Why? Because instead of taking the restaurant's coasters as a souvenir, why not just take a video of you being there? Or how about a random video of a cool dog and a guy playing the banjo in Chicago?

Since we had our iPhones, we (Anthony) took a bunch of pictures and videos that will allow us to forever remember our trip. And, by far, the one thing we photographed the most was the food we ate. Which brings us to...

2. Finding great places to eat

Before smartphones, you would have to either (a) already know a place you wanted to eat before you left on the trip, (b) take a recommendation from a friend or (c) take a recommendation from the concierge at the front desk of the hotel. As you already know, these are all risky propositions. In comes the iPhone.

If we weren't playing games or taking pictures of random scenery, like this,

then we were most likely looking up places to eat. Being able to use the iPhone to find good eats is like having a cheat guide when playing a video game. It takes a lot of the hard work out of it, but you know you'll win in the end. We were able to look up popular places and read hundreds of reviews from people who have eaten there. Of course, this method isn't fool proof, but the opinions of hundreds weigh greater than the opinion of one person (who told us not to go to that great burger place in Austin). We were even able to find great (the only) food in the middle of nowhere:

Chicken fajita nachos.

So my advice to you: go with what the iPhone says, not what the person at the front desk says. And now, the number one reason to use an iPhone on a road trip is...

1. Not getting lost

When I first got my car about five years ago, my mom bought me a map of the county we lived in and put it in the glove box. I have used that map exactly zero times (although it is still in my car). The issue with having a map of your town is that is the place you know best and get lost the least. Now, when you drive across the country, that's a little different. You need maps. And I couldn't imagine road tripping without an iPhone. It might've meant I would've had to actually plan my trip.

But in all seriousness, I believe the map and GPS feature of an iPhone has revolutionized traveling. It reduces stress, saves time, and reduces arguments.

"Is he serious? I'm just going to ask someone."

You can't argue with an iPhone. If it says you're going the wrong way, well guess what buddy, you are. Time to turn around. And this isn't to say we didn't get lost at all on our trip. But as soon as we did, we knew it and we fixed it.

It even allowed us to adventure off the beaten path to find food or go see something we hadn't planned on. Like when we stopped for food in Coleman, Texas, where I swear I thought we would be shot:

Us Northerners just didn't fit in down these here parts.

So what's my overall advice? Why did I even write this article, besides to waste your time? Get a smartphone and go on a road trip. It's actually pretty easy. If Anthony, George and I were able to do it, so can you. In fact, it was one of the coolest trips I've ever been on, and thanks to the iPhone's ability to blog and take great pictures, I (and you) will remember it forever.

Oh and one more piece of advice: Make sure you bring your charger.

With that, this blog is complete. It's possible, but not probable, that I will post on this in the future. I hope you all liked it, I know I did. It was fun to write and it allowed me a way to express myself and share my trip with everyone. I wish all of my friends could've come, but there will be more road trip opportunities in the future. Anthony and George, thank you so much for taking off work to come with me on the trip. So far, I like my new situation in San Francisco, and every day it feels a little bit more comfortable. I hope to see you all again very soon.