New Rick Steves iPhone tour apps available

Only one of them is free, the others are $4.99

I got the St. Peter's Basilica one to see how it was... For people without his guidebooks, it serves its purpose. Otherwise, it's just the same information recycled.

Thanks, Ben, for correcting my hastily made error on the tour costs. I edited the post to reflect your correction.

"For people without his guidebooks, it serves its purpose. Otherwise, it's just the same information recycled."

Yeah, but it's really nice to leave the bulky guidebook at the hotel and just take your iPhone (which you'd have with you anyway). In Italy last month I had scanned the site maps from the guide book and put them on my iPhone in PDF format. It worked great for getting around the Forum and in the Colosseum. I also had the free audio tours and they were really good, for me, since I wanted something fairly short that told me the basics and didn't go on forever.

It would be cool if they could use the GPS to pinpoint your location and automatically tell you about the places as you pass them. I think the GPS will work even with data roaming turned off*, so it might not cost anything to use overseas since the app has the maps of the tour area already built in.

*The iPhone Maps app requires data to be turned on, so it can download Google maps to use with the GPS, but I think the GPS itself works with the satellites to pinpoint your location even with data turned off.

Patrick, I used the free RS podcasts with my iPhone in Venice Florence & Rome last year and you're right, they're straight from the pages of the RS books. If I recall right, there were several for each city. I remember using the one for our self-guided tour of the Grand Canal and Frari in Venice. My husband and I each received "free" RS books for our tour, so I broke one down to just the parts I needed to take with me. Of course, I didn't have to take the sections which were covered by the podcasts - that was nice.

I've found my iPhone to be wonderful to travel with and can't wait to use the free kindle app which I've already downloaded. I HAVEN'T PERSONALLY DONE THIS, but my plan is to download the RS guide (say to Rome) and use my iPhone to reference it. The cost of all kindle books is $9.99 and you can't get more compact than the iPhone. I'm a book person and I know that nothing compares with actually holding the book and flipping the pages; however, that gets cumbersome especially when trying to travel light. If anyone has done this, I'd love to hear your thoughts. The link to the free Italy podcasts is http://www.ricksteves.com/news/travelnews/0602/italy_downloads.htm

Patrick, that sounds like a terrific idea.

I used Google Maps and planned all of our routes, then took still shots of them on the iPhone and arranged them into folders. I didn't think about scanning Rick's guide maps for the individual sites. I don't suppose you would want to save me the trouble by sending those over to me somehow? Ha ha.

If I didn't own the books, that would surely be illegal, but I own Rick Steves Italy, Rome, Florence & Tuscany, Venice, Spain, and Croatia & Slovenia. All 2009 editions.

I completely understand if you don't want to though. To do it myself, do I just scan it into my PC in PDF format and then transfer it to the phone? Will it retain all of the detail? Thanks.

Ben, you may not need to do any scanning. This very website provides free PDF versions of several of Rick's self-guided tour maps. They're linked right next to their corresponding MP3 files. For example the Italy maps are here:

http://www.ricksteves.com/news/travelnews/0602/italy_downloads.htm

"Ben, you may not need to do any scanning. This very website provides free PDF versions..."

I'd forgotten, but that's where I got them. I didn't scan them. The maps of the sites are on the same page here as the audio tours, so I got them all.

But yes, anything like that you want to carry on your iPhone, just scan it, put it in PDF format, and e-mail it to yourself on the iPhone as an attachment. Then, once you get to your travel destination, just open the e-mail, open the attachment, and you've got the document or map. It's not necessary to be connected to the Internet to view them. Like any PDF on the iPhone, you can zoom in, move the view around with your finger, etc.

I've recently installed the Documents To Go iPhone software and it's great. No need to e-mail the PDFs to your phone anymore. On your desktop computer, just drag any documents you want (TXT, DOC, PDF, lots of formats...even PowerPoint presentations!) to your Documents To Go folder, sync your iPhone, and you've got them all on the phone, read to use on your travels.

Wow. Documents to Go is awesome. I already have all the Rick Steves PDFs on my phone now, but I wish there were more. I will still need the guide book for Palatine Hill, for example.