In praise of big tech & social media as they help the traveller.

Google Maps, Google Translate, Twitter, Facebook, Viber, WhatsApp, Wikipedia, YouTube have been invaluable for international travellers & workers though I still love hard copy atlases, road maps, dictionaries & encyclopaedias. It is fashionable to slag off apps & corporations but

This is a tweet I meant to write at the end of working in Chernihiv region, northern Ukraine for two months in Spring 2019, the apps of big corporations, the internet (& Wikipedia) made travel, work & volunteering abroad much easier in the last years

Slagging off Facebook & Google, Microsoft & other tech giants is sometimes fair but it is unfair not to welcome & applaud the great help they also are for so many people – Skype too (other products are available). PS I sometimes use CDs even as well, I was a late adopter

Published first as a Twitter thread, 8:46 PM · Sep 2, 2021·https://twitter.com/KironReid/status/1433501488471494661

The post spurred by my replying to this Ian Bancroft tweet

 
 
 

Ian Bancroft
 
@bancroftian




My reply – I totally agree, seeing this problem quite often. Google Maps is incredibly useful but pretty inaccurate in south Serbia and not great in North Macedonia, with no ability to correct actual road content. Some predates route of E-75. I use Michelin maps on desktop alternatively.
8:29 PM · Sep 2, 2021