Of iPods, Tourism and Books

Do you listen to books? I mean not read them but listen to narratives? I'm sure you must have had someone read out from picture storybooks when you were young. As you grew up to decipher the alphabet, you were on your own, straining your eyes at different prints and scripts and absorbing the thoughts of the writer and making opinions of your own. If you are reading this blog I'm sure that you must have formed an opinion of me already. Well, that's what books and essays are for. And good for us too.

I use my iPod almost exclusively to listen to music. Once in a while when I'm bored with the music tracks I've been listening to again and again, I just put away my iPod and then forget about it. That is, till the next time I feel like to listening to music.

Anyways, I recently found two other great utilities for my iPod. One of them is, listening to audiobooks. Speaking of which, I was aware that audiobooks existed but was skeptical about them. I felt that they would take the fun out of reading. Then one fine day, when I was bored out of my wits and was browsing aimlessly, I came across this site called librivox (http://librivox.org). Out of plain curiosity, I downloaded one of the audiobook's chapters for a trial run. And I liked it. Since then I keep visiting this site for new updates. Most of the times, the readers do a good job. Some of them (not all) even modulate their voices and accents to suit the characters in the book. Sometimes, it feels nice to close your eyes and listen to someone reading out passages from your favorite books. You get to relax in a nice way and at the same time are giving your strained eyes a bit of rest.

Coming to the other use of iPod. This is what I call the "iGuide". While, preparing for my trip to Paris, I was researching for a good site that would guide me around the city while I was there. There was way too much information for a first time visitor when I googled and I was totally lost as to where to start. First, there were printable maps. Then there were Bus tour sites that would pick you up from your hotel and take you on a tour and so on.

And then I found two other cool things due to my persistent googling. One of them was a nice interactive map software (trial version) of the city for my Palm. If I keyed in my present location, I would be able to find my way around the city and also easily locate the famous tourist spots and hotels. Which also meant that I could do away with carrying those cumbersome street maps which always tend to get slapped onto my face by the wind just as I am trying to desperately locate the "You are here" spot.

The other most interesting find was this iGuide thing. There is a nice site called Zevisit (http://www.zevisit.com/) which had audiocasts of famous tourist spots. These audio files contained narratives about famous spots in the city of Paris. For a first time traveler with a limited budget and no tour guide, this is a real useful tool. All I needed was an mp3 player (which I had) and I could start to listen about the site as I roamed around it. This would save me the trouble of reading from a guidebook and walk around at the same time. Of course, I just plugged in the earphone into one ear so that I could listen to the city sounds with my other ear. The narratives in the podcasts were nice and well made. They made my experience of Paris all the more interesting. Wish they come up with such good stuff for other cities too.

Now, I truly feel that I'm making good use of my iPod. I'm not into music in a big way. So I used my iPod occasionally. With the audiobooks and the tour trips' podcasts, this little tool has made itself indispensible. Good for me.