One of the most popular posts ever on newelty has been our list of top iPhone apps, so it’s no surprise that I received a request for the best iPad apps from a friend. Having made it happily from Seattle to Nairobi to Copenhagen back to Seattle again–and having found this travel easier and more pleasant than ever before, thanks to my iPad–I can say authoritatively that it has changed my travel life for the better. Period.

Here are the apps I use to fight jet lag’s confusion, get work done even without a laptop, and stay entertained while the plane pops and rocks with turbulence. I also pan some apps that aren’t worth their salt.

Staying in Touch
No, you aren’t missing anything–Facebook has no iPad app to date, probably because their and Apple’s lawyers haven’t finished some to-the-death cage match yet. In the interim, I use myPad (free). It resolves to the full iPad screen and gets the job done crash-free.

If you’re planning from blogging from the road, I like the simple, almost-email like app for WordPress (also free). A little while ago, I considered starting fresh with Tumblr for newelty, but their iPad app isn’t ready for prime time. WordPress could have more iPad support in terms of templates for how your blog displayed–Onswipe was also buggy for me–but in terms of the ability to quickly publish a post, WordPress is still the winner.

Your Little Travel Helper
My iPad feels like the awesome dashboard/assistant any traveler should have for a trip. I feel affection for it as it keeps me company throughout the journey, letting me know what time it is back home.

To that end, every traveler should have World Clock Pro on their iPad ($1.99). Have you ever done that thing of being jet lagged and trying to subtract hours to figure out the time back home–and realizing you calculated wrong, and it’s AM not PM, or vice versa? Never again. World Clock lets you enter a ton of cities and has a slider that you can move to double check that when you wake up in your morning, it’s still a reasonable time for a call back home. Check out the video above for a demo.

Looking through the scores of weather apps, I settled on Weather+ ($.99). Like World Clock, you can load up a series of cities to see the daily highs and get the general gist. I also love that it stores the info for when you are not online anymore (say, when you’re on a wifi-free plane). It may be a slightly expired data, but better that than the Weather Channel app’s “failed connection” response.

Moleskines are a overplayed, but the Moleskine app is more than a marketing ploy (free). It’s a great Notepad equivalent that displays like a digital version of one of their notebooks.

For more practical note taking, try Evernote (free). To repeat the theme from this whole section, you’ll want to have apps that work when you are both off and on wifi. When you are on, Evernote saves your files–no more emailing notes to yourself for later.

Feeding Your Brain on a 14-Hour Flight

I hate being stuck in the metal tube. Hate. I am a terrible flier who morphs into an insane armrest defender. My iPad has chilled me out, largely because with my high-quality headphones, I can simply pretend all the other people in the tube don’t exist.

My number one tip isn’t an app, but this:

Download tons of movies and TV shows via iTunes. TONS. All those shows you’ve read about but never actually had time to watch? Now you do. Download a couple of each of four or five shows, and you can stock up on additional episodes next time you hit wifi. I did that with “An Idiot Abroad” and was so happy I did. It might be the best travel show ever on television, and it made me laugh out loud while experiencing turbulence flying over the Sahara Desert. (Did I mention I am a crazy-nervous flier?)

Since you may be wifi-free for many hours, the important thing is to pack your iPad as you do your suitcase.

Kindle is the best book app, just because Amazon simply has more, and more obscure, titles than Apple (free, but–duh–you have to buy the books). Apple forced Amazon to remove the ability to one-click a book (cue additional lawyer cage fights), but that’s OK. Load up from Safari before you leave home and you’re fine. Amazon also offers first chapters of books as samples, so employ the same snack bar theory as with iTunes, above.

For magazines, props to Vanity Fair for an inventive app that deconstructs the magazine (free, but you have to buy individual magazines or subscribe). Plus, I just like their content for flights, and enjoy not having to haul the extra paper.

For a whole host of obscure mags, I like Zinio (free, but, again, buy stuff through the app). A long time ago–about two years’ time–I tried to get “Time Out Amsterdam” delivered to my home. It would have cost $100 for an annual subscription. Hello! Instead, I can get them delivered via Zinio, because it has every magazine in the world, as far as I can tell.

Instapaper is a little tricky to use, but is a hidden gem ($4.99). It lets you save web pages to read later, say, on a plane. You enter the URL and save it to your repository. I love this app when I have 20 page PDFs to read and no time to look at them at work.

Using the Hotel WiFi

In general, I use Feedly with my Google RSS Reader to follow blogs (free). The display is minimalist and clean, which I appreciate. It also has some popular blogs like Kottke and swissmiss pre-loaded, if you want to try it without bothering with a Google Reader setup.

Hitpad keeps track of what’s trending on Twitter, and provides all the background you could need as to why, in video, article, and tweet form (free).

If you do have wifi in your hotel, and it’s strong enough to support a stream, Netflix has a very good app that lets you watch most of their huge video library (free app, monthly fee for streaming). I generally do a combo of this and iTunes downloads, depending on the length of the trip and the amount of time I’ll be spending in various airports.

GoodReader is the most work-focused app here ($4.99). It opens Word docs. Sometimes I need that to happen, and am grateful that I downloaded this app.

When I’m traveling, I seem to be perpetually looking up information, including background on the new places I’ve been. The Wikipedia app is quick and easy (free).

Save Your Time and Money

I love the Daily Show, and miss it while I’m on the road. But the Daily Show app is terrible. Because the shows are for sale on iTunes, it only gives you one clip per episode. Since the segments are generally interlaced with what comes before or after, it’s a glaring omission to only include half of a joke. Save your money or buy the iTunes full episodes instead. Or wait until you get home and watch them for free on their website.

The Weather Channel app is a resource hog because of the satellite maps, and won’t load unless you’re on wifi. Stick with the other weather app recommended above instead.

Flipboard seems cool in theory, but in actuality, I never use it. It pulls in the links that your friends post on Facebook and Twitter, but it winds up feeling redundant, as I’ve mostly already seen those in their Facebook feeds. It’s basically just taking up space at this point, because I can’t bring myself to delete it, but I don’t use it either.

Any good ones I missed? Drop a line in the comments–I love to compare apps!

I recently started reading and enjoying the blog called “Sociological Images,” which I find to be provocative and insightful. But a recent post by Lisa Wade gave me pause. From the post:

Sadie M. sent in an example of the reproduction of the idea that “Africa” is an arid, desolate place where nature still dominates civilization…Despite all of this, Sadie’s snapshot shows that an in flight magazine depicted Nairobi as a savanna full of elephants and bereft of people. The other two destinations featured – New York and Sydney — are pictured as they are.”

Basically, the argument is that in the promotional material covering Nairobi–a huge metropolis–the PR people are falling for an “Out of Africa” style fantasia. This seems like a good concept to be vigilant about, but misguided in this specific case.

To be clear, I agree with Lisa’s impulse–Betty has also blogged in a similar vein, about the concerns that a poverty tour in South Africa veers too close to the concept of a tour of the “human zoo.” Defining South Africa, or Kenya, for Western eyes is a fraught business. But in this particular case, a national park located inside the city of Nairobi makes this particular criticism incorrect.

Photos and video from the park after the jump.

I was in Nairobi for the first time in June, and it confounded my expectations. It was a work trip, and I spent a great deal of the time in meeting rooms, or in cars taking me to meeting rooms, watching the vast swath of humanity walking through the streets at all hours.

But because of a fluke, my colleagues and I missed our scheduled flight to Dar Es Salaam, and wound up with an unscheduled afternoon. We were behind a huge pile of tourists checking out of the hotel and heading on safari–and not the cool, low-to-the-ground style safari Betty does, but the all-expenses-paid extravaganza. When in Nairobi, we thought, we had nothing else to do until our meetings could be rescheduled. We took a couple of hours, packed up some snacks, and headed out to the nearby national park.

As the Wikipedia entry on the park explains:

Nairobi National Park is a national park in Kenya. Established in 1946, the national park was Kenya’s first. It is located approximately 7 kilometres (4 mi) south of the centre of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city, with only a fence separating the park’s wildlife from the metropolis. Nairobi’s skyscrapers can be seen from the park.

In other words, photos of wildlife pictured aren’t necessarily erasing the city of Nairobi, but potentially accurately capturing it. The one caveat of the particular picture in the in flight magazine is that there aren’t elephants in the park, so that’s likely a nearby nature preserve. But there are the rest of the “big five,” most of which we were lucky to see. Including a lion:

We were touring the park in these funny pop-up-top vans, and with a lion so close to the road, it caused the drivers to speak semi-frantically on their walkie-talkies, causing a three-van pileup nearby. I was as interested in the other sightseers as the lions themselves:

We saw an adorable little black rhino, as well as a fleet of impalas. But my favorite, by far, were the giraffes:

I find their motion mesmerizing:

The urban humanity is an undeniable part of Nairobi, of course–but so is everything pictured above.

I am in love with British Airways. There’s no other way to say it. I’m obsessed (having signed up for a credit card with them to get more miles). I spend time thinking about them, and how to fly them next. It’s like the worst high-school crush ever, and all because of Club World.

Betty has already shared the virtues of flying when there are only four seats across the plane (thanks, Singapore Air!) But I had no idea how lovely flat seats could be when combined with British politeness until last month. And now there’s no going back–Club World has ruined me forever.

See those arrows above? The ones all the way to the left of the photo? They allow you to micro-adjust your seat. See the photo that looks like a flat line? That sends you into heaven. I was obsessed with these buttons, floating up out of sleep to make sure they were still there, and it wasn’t all a dream and I was secretly stuffed into coach.

Full show and tell after the jump!

See the footrest below? Yeah, that. And the pop-out television that you can also stow out of your way? And the lamp on the wall in front, to make the entire experience seem more civilized? And the plastic divider that makes your nearest seatmate seem like a fuzzy memory?

Obsessed. You can stow the footrest, of course. It’s also worth mentioning that British Airways keeps a stiff upper lip, and doesn’t pander with dumb stunts in the way that Virgin does (a.k.a. “in flight sexy texting“).

Combine all these amenities with British stewards coming by asking if you’d like to have your tea “topped up” (answer is always yes, by the way), and you’ll have a sense of why I am planning on flying them again this summer, even on my own dime.

And let’s not forget the lounges. At Heathrow Airport’s new Terminal 5, the Club World lounge was enormous. They had a full meal service as you first entered the lounge, but everywhere are snacks and treats tucked away in quiet oases.

Evidently, they also have free massages, although I arrived too late to take advantage.

Club World, will you marry me and make it official already?

P.S. In honor of the royal wedding extravaganza, I’ll be posting on everything London this week. Tally ho!

How great is she? I also love this couldn’t-be-more-New-Yorky-shot:

It was a brilliant juxtaposition to send him to fashion weeks all over the world. How often have you seen photos of the front row of fashion shows, inevitably with Chloe Sevigny wearing bermudas and calling it “fashion”? Instead, consider this unscripted shot, where Mr. Gossip Girl is bringing the Blue Steel, but the guy in the third row back looks like he just wants a pastrami and a hot cup of coffee already:

That photo is 1,000 times more interesting, more evocative of the time and place than these mandatory B-listers-posing on the way into the fashion shows:

Why does anyone bother taking these? They almost always involve the mandatory hand-on-hip move to make a slimming figure and a bored look on the person’s face. If you’re bored, why should I care?

On the other side of the spectrum are the Mermelstein shots from Milan, after the jump, which are so Italy-meets-New-York, they should probably offer to make you a calzone.

I love this one of drivers outside the Gucci show–if you’ve ever been to Italy, you know the general flavor of what the guy with the arm gesture in the foreground is saying:

I also love this sad Italian fashion clown:

And just for good measure, one actually glamorous shot, albeit of us looking in and a glass wall between us:

No, this post isn’t about our #6 favorite travel movie of all time, but about the actual Vladimir Lenin. As you probably know, he’s been on display as a kind of tourist trinket-slash-semi-religious icon since his death, in Red Square in all his waxy glory. But possibly not for much longer.

I went to check out the online poll, because, really–how funny is that? His mortal coil put to an online vote? (At least they didn’t use survey monkey, which would have added a layer of extra indignity.) It sounds like a hoax, but no, it’s legit.

Google translate says that the page says:

“I think every year we must raise the same question of the removal of the remains of Lenin’s body from the mausoleum – said in an interview with the official site of the party” United Russia Duma deputy Vladimir Medina – is well known that Lenin himself was not going to build a no mausoleums and his living relatives – a sister and brother were opposed. They wanted to bury him in St. Petersburg with his mother. But the Communists did not care about the desires and most of the leader and his relatives.

“Do you support the idea of dumping the body V. Lenin?

Maybe something got lost in translation for that last bit, but it seems like a particularly rough wording of that question, doesn’t it?

Go ahead, take the poll yourself. All glory to the Internets!

I want to stay in a real pod hotel soon, and Kyoto seems like the place to do it. Cabbage Rose had a write-up of 9h (a.k.a. “9 hours”) which looks well-designed, sharp, and hyper-clean. I love instruction pages (which come from the 9h website) like this:

Kyoto is on my top three list of places to see next. It might be fun to stay one night in a pod hotel and one night in a ryokan, just to see the difference.

Photos from inside 9h after the jump.

When I look at the pod from this angle, it seems like an iPad you can sleep in:

Then I look at the wall of these, and I do get a little freaked out by the coffin-like nature of them one on top of each other:

What do you think? Have you slept in a pod hotel? Liked it? Left screaming after you woke up in the middle of the night, disoriented, with the ceiling one foot above your head?

Check out the collage of photos from their site, where everything is super-pleasing. I can’t resist its Muji-like charms.

Mr. Lee’s makes me want to be a dude. Or, to be precise, not a dude, but the kind of anti-hipster that has never, ever worn a pair of skinny jeans. A guy that could be a beat poet in another life, or maybe grew up down the street from the Great Gatsby. Because if I was that guy, Mr. Lee’s would trick me out with great stuff.

The shop is super-tiny. Like, 10 feet long at most. But it’s got such great, well-designed stuff, including Moscot glasses. I own a pair that were sold to me by Sol Moscot himself. I went into the store, located on the Lower East Side, with the idea of picking up a pair of Gingers. Sol put me straight.

Evidently, I’m more of a Zelig. But I digress.

Mr. Lee’s has Moscots, among what feels like hundreds of other awesome boy treats. And, as was explained to me, the exact sunglasses Don Draper wears on Mad Men. How great is it that someone actually bothered to track those down?

A slight variation of my image of Venice: canals, quaintness, lightposts. Plus bikes. The postcard image of Holland.

And don’t get me wrong. That’s charming, and I love that the picture I took was just an average day in Haarlem, nothing special. There is a beauty to the Dutch way of life that’s undeniable.

But when I talk about loving the Dutch design aesthetic, what I mean is a spectrum that includes the crazy modern stuff like the kind Droog creates. I actually have a set of these bikes straps to use in your house. I have no idea what I’ll use them for, mind you, but I just love the idea of taking something so practical and making it a design element on the wall. Plus, hello novelty!

One of the things that I think makes Dutch design unique is that it has to be understandable by so many types of people from so many other lands. This started during the Golden Age of trading, but Amsterdam today reflects their multicultural past in so many tiny ways, like this crossing sign designed so that absolutely anyone can understand what the hell that button is for:

In the U.S., when I think about spaces that have to be used by every kind of person, the word beige comes to mind: Beige hotel rooms. Beige walls. I’m partly design obsessed right now because I’m looking for a new house, and the common denominator seems to be to take everything down to a nice taupe. Think of the redesign of the Oval Office–bland, beige, non-threatening. What’s the point?

I try to imagine Americans picking these orange striped blinds for their house, and I just can’t.

When I was in the Netherlands, I made a commitment to do what I saw so often there–put a little table and chairs, or better yet, a bench, in the front of my house. It’s so friendly and so cheerful. I think, like the way the Dutch embrace color, it signifies something larger–a willingness to engage with the street, with passers-by.

Not always of course, but the Dutch seem to be to be often brave in their design choices–with color, with functionality, and with the ability for people to interact with each other and with the daily life that hums along on the street.

I’ve loved this shop since it was named Egg Merchantile a few years ago. I asked the owners–Americans, although the shop is in the tourist heart of Amsterdam–why they changed the name. People thought it was a literal egg merchantile, ignoring the beautiful displays of jewelry and oddities. That funny story just makes it better, to me.

And speaking of jewelry, here’s what I picked up last time I was there.

I get more compliments on this necklace than anything else I wear. Often, I forget I have it on, and people will spontaneously start talking to me about how they love old typewriters, how they still have one, how they wish they had one, and then I remember–I’m wearing the Otherist necklace. Right.

The fennel soap they sell is nice. I keep mine in my linen closet and can’t bear to use it, even though I know I could buy another one. I want all the necklaces they have, including an anatomically correct heart, tiny frog, etc.

They have a very fun blog that introduces all their letterpressy, insecty, otherwordly novelties.

I searched the Google maps nearby towns looking for a B&B, and mapped out my route using Google street view. It looked like the total commute time by bike would be 30 minutes, 45 tops. After my freakout about how it would work and my test drive in Delft, I found out that the Netherlands really makes biking easy, no matter where you are.

Video of my daily ride after the jump.

I’m hoping the cute song makes the bumpiness charming, rather than nauseating.

I live in Seattle, and we have nothing like this. We have someone who seems to be an ineffectual mayor (my skeptical friend nicknamed him Mayor McCheese). He actually complimented my own Dutch bike when I saw him in my neighborhood, which is nice. But what would be nicer is a plan for a real biking infrastructure like the kind in this tiny town in the Netherlands, so small it barely has a wikipedia entry. Does this plan exist already? I don’t think so. And if not, Mayor McGinn, could you create  it? Because the video above shows how fantastically great that was for many reasons.

In case you want to enjoy some much-more-professional videos (sans rockiness and something on the lens), try out these favorites sites that always inspire:

• Cycle Chic
• Amsterdamize
• Let’s Go Ride a Bike