2012 South America Adventures: The Dream lives on in Argentina

My 2012 South America Adventures will be an amazing, high octane, tango dancing, soccer kicking, history enlightening, Zodiac boat riding and Patagonia glacier watching experience.  Can you tell that I'm very excited about this new adventure. :)

I wrote a series of Pre-Trip posts to help me to prepare for my trip which is a very helpful tip that I learned from blogging friend, Sandra (Leaping Without a Net).   

Most of my important logistics have all been made (Airline Tickets, Lodging, a couple of tour Reservations) and I have a couple of guidebooks and several Apps for my iTouch downloaded to provide me with information on the attractions I'll be seeing (opening times, location, fees, etc.) and logistical help like transportation, language, note taking, food tips, etc.

Photography is one of my hobbies so I have been practicing composition, photography techniques and theme development. I will bring my DSLR camera but will use my waterproof Nikon Coolpix while riding on the Iguazu Zodiac boat ride as well as when I want to explore Buenos Aires without my bulky DSLR camera.  

I found a wonderful sight called Bloggers in Argentina which had a comprehensive list of interesting blogs from expats, travelers and residents living in Argentina.  I have also researched all threads related to Argentina on my favorite Travel Site, Slow Travel and other helpful community sites like Fodors, Lonely Planet and Trip Advisor .  With all that reading, I feel like I am pretty well informed for this trip.  I have also watched YouTube videos and studied photos taken by other photographers to get an idea of what I'll be seeing.  Here's one of my favorite videos HERE. 

I have my must see list and other than the set dates for my day trips and tours, I will try to wing it day by day.  I will most likely schedule the festival dates to make sure that I can attend, then I will try to group my sightseeing logistically by neighborhoods to minimize moving across the city from point to point. My evenings will be my relax down times and an opportunity to experience and to absorb the Buenos Aires nightlife and culture.  It will also be a time to eat, drink and be merry!  :)

I will have WiFi in my apartment and unlike most European countries I've had the pleasure of visiting, I find that Buenos Aires is very well connected.  Most of the apartments I looked at included free WiFi and even some of the bookstores and cafes have free WiFi.  So with this in mind I do plan on blogging live while on the road and I will probably do a bit of tweeting too since I have my iTouch.  I love blogging while traveling because it's fun, I get to share my experiences with family, friends and co-workers and it helps me to remember my experiences.  Reading my live blogging when I return home allows me to relive all of my adventures again and again for as many times as I want to.  Sometimes while traveling things are happening so fast and it can be easy to be overwhelmed and to overlook and/or forget some of the fine details unless I write or record a voice memo about them.  

I have this App called Daily Tracker which I find useful not just for Travel but for my daily personal life at home.  For Travel, I use this app to create my packing and to do list, I record my itinerary and trip planning notes such as the festivals/fairs that I want to attend. For this trip, I have even created a language tips folder where I have recorded Google Translate text and audio of certain helpful phrases that I think I'll need.  Last year, I used this App as a journal.  You can take a photo, type out text and make a voice recording all together in one entry.  This was extremely helpful to remember places I dined in and what I ate and it was helpful to jot down and record my thoughts about the attractions I visited, some of which I used in my blog entries.

Here's an example of an audio clip I recorded while enjoying lunch at Chez Black in Positano on the Amalfi Coast.  Makes me feel like I was just there!

I also purchased an App called Genius Scan+-PDF Scanner which will allow me to take a photo of something and save it as either JPEG or PDF file into my Photo Album, Documents folder or my PDF READER PRO App.  This will be very helpful for photographing posters, menus or bus/Subte schedules on the fly.  I wished I had this type of App last year on the Amalfi Coast to scan the Sita bus schedules.  I had to type it out manually which wasn't fun to do on the fly. :)

Finally, you simply must have a Note Taking app to jot down important quick notes to yourself.  Last year I found an interesting use for my  Touch Notes App.  My train from Rome to Salerno was unexpectedly delayed, but I couldn't understand the train announcement to know by how much.  So I turned to my Italian seat mates and managed to communicate my question on how much of a delay it was. She politely wrote down 12:45 (45 minute delay) and even spoke to the car service people for me when I called to notify them. :)

I also found a few Buenos Aires Travel Guide Apps that I hope will be useful (I will review upon my return).  They include:  Buenos Aires Subway , Buenos Aires Travel Guide by Lonely Planet, Buenos Aires Offline Map Travel Guide, Spanish Travel Talk, Buenos Aires Essential Guide, Buenos Aires Travel Guide Offine and Buenos Aires Travel Guide Offline.

So there you have it.  My Pre-Trip posts are done.  Thanks so much for taking an interest in my trip plans and I hope to share this beautiful country with all of you while on the road. :)   The next post that I write about my trip will hopefully be when I touch down in Buenos Aires!