Confessions Of... A River-rafting Guide

When you've gotta go Overall, the applications we're most impressed with incorporate GPS technology. They give info suited to your exact location, so you never have to punch in zip codes or addresses. SitOrSquat (BlackBerry, iPhone, free) automatically points out nearby public restrooms and includes details such as whether they're open and if they have changing tables. It relies on user-submitted data, and some members even upload photos and rate toilets. But the selection is only as good as the local SitOrSquat community; pickings are slim if you stray from big cities in Europe, the U.S., New Zealand, and Australia. A quirk: Many of the restrooms are at Starbucks—and really, how difficult is it to find a Starbucks? When you're hungry and tired Restaurant-review sites Urbanspoon and Yelp (iPhone, free) both have apps that let you search based on your current location or a chosen neighborhood, price points, or keywords like "vietnamese" or "fish tacos." If you can't make up your mind, try the iPhone's Shake function with Urbanspoon; a slot machine-like interface scrolls through restaurants that fit your criteria before landing on one randomly. • Several hotel-booking applications we tried were disappointing, often turning up very few results in major cities. The exception was the one for hotels.com (iPhone, free), with which you can check out tons of hotel descriptions, ratings, and prices; view properties on a map; and book with a tap of your finger. • Some hotel companies are also in the game: The Choice Hotels Locator (iPhone, free), from the business that runs Comfort Inn and other brands, pulls up info and makes reservations at 5,800 of its properties worldwide. Security measures Using Department of Justice data, iSafe (G1, $1) creates a safety profile of your location, and a female voice alerts you when you enter a high-crime area. That's great in theory, but in our tests, iSafe went off at midday in safe Manhattan 'hoods like the Upper East Side. Bottom line: Don't underestimate old-fashioned street sense. • Private-I (iPhone, $1) aims to retrieve stolen iPhones. For it to work, the thief must click on your phone's icon reading PRIVATE, which opens a screen that says "Accessing Pictures." It's a stall tactic so the app can e-mail you the phone's location. What next? Good question. Call the police, we guess, and hope the thief stays put. Getting oriented anywhere Based on your location, the Wikitude AR Travel Guide (G1, $1) shows nearby landmarks and popular attractions plotted on a map. Touch a spot on the screen—a museum, a bridge, a skyscraper—to read a Wikipedia entry about it or to view user-shared Panoramio photos of the attraction and the surrounding area. Car trouble Culling info from 181 websites that track gas prices in the U.S. and Canada, Gas Buddy (iPhone, $3) lists what you'll pay for regular, premium, and diesel at nearby gas stations, all shown on a map. Cheap Gas is a similar app that's free, but it has no interactive map feature. • Trapster (BlackBerry, iPhone, free) warns of police speed traps—but even with thousands of user updates daily, the info can be old. • The GPS-enabled ParkMark (G1, $2) remembers where you parked your car and guides you back via a compass-like arrow. Passing time App games are a dime a dozen. Two of our faves are neat spins on travel-related classics. Plate Spotters (iPhone, $1) puts an end to the "are we there yet's" with an e-version of the license-plate game, in which players earn points for how many different states' plates they see. • Meanwhile, The Oregon Trail (BlackBerry, from $5; iPhone, $6) updates an old-school video game. You travel virtually with a covered wagon, rationing provisions and deciding whether to hunt squirrels for food, pick up hitchhikers, or get help when your kid falls ill with cholera. • If you prefer to pass time by sleeping, there's a solution to napping past your destination. Turn on GPS-enabled iNap (iPhone, $1) and enter the address where you're going—and how many miles away from your destination you'd like to wake up. An alarm goes off when you reach the spot. Staying in touch A new app for making phone calls via Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology just might change the way you dial internationally, saving you a bundle in the process. The app for Skype (iPhone, free) functions similarly to how Skype works on the computer: Calling and instant-messaging other Skype users are free, and you pay as little as 2¢ a minute to dial a regular number. International calls cost next to nothing, and you can also receive incoming calls so long as the app is open. But you didn't really think they'd let Skype gouge AT&T's profits, did you? Making and receiving calls are only possible in Wi-Fi hotspots. Communicating with the locals Get translations for hundreds of sentences and phrases—"red wine" in Italian, "nonsmoking section" in Mandarin—for 28 languages using the Lonely Planet Mobile Phrasebooks app (iPhone, $10 per language). Phrases are grouped into easily searchable categories like transport, banking, and emergencies. Once you've found what you want, your phone shows a phonetic pronunciation and even reads it to you. • A lazier option: Point It (iPhone, $5), an offshoot of the popular tourist book, consists of everyday travel images (markets, snorkeling, beer), with the idea that you display the appropriate photo to express yourself. Dorky? Yes. But handy if you can't get across that you need a Western-style toilet, or you don't want nuts in your food. Finding a taxi when there are none Plenty of apps pull up lists of local cab companies. Of all the competitors—including Cab4Me and Taxi!—we like Taxi Magic (BlackBerry, iPhone, free) best because of its Magic Booking feature. In over 30 cities, including Boston, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, you can connect directly to a cab company's dispatch system and have a car sent to you, no phone call required.

$17 Clogs Geta clogs, traditionally worn with kimonos, date to the 2nd century. Now, Japanese teens wear them with jeans. Oriental Bazaar, 5-9-13 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, 011-81/3-3400-3933. $8 Toy robot The time-honored craft of origami gets a 21st-century update in these ready-to-assemble paper Piperoid robots. Souvenir from Tokyo, 7-22-2 Roppongi, Minato-ku, 011-81/3-6812-9933. $4 Fake sushi Smaller is better in Japanese culture, so it's no surprise that even sushi gets the cute mini treatment. The scallops in this set are the size of your pinkie nail! 6-1-9 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, 011-81/3-3409-3431, kiddyland.co.jp. $25 Bowl Hakusan Porcelain dates back to 1779, but their 2009 noodle dish, with a shelf for condiments, is completely modern. 5-3-10 Minami Aoyama, Minato-ku, 011-81/3-5774-8850. $10 Book of maps A befuddling maze of signless streets, Tokyo is impossible to navigate without help. This journal compiles maps drawn on receipts and napkins and has space for your notes. 1-14-11 Aobadai, Meguro-ku, 011-81/3-5459-1747. $9 Snack box The quintessential Japanese snack onigiri, a rice ball wrapped in seaweed, has its own perfectly sized container. Loft Shibuya, 21-1 Udagawacho, Shibuya-ku, 011-81/3-3462-3807. $24 Socks Sou Sou has taken the standard socks with sectioned-off big toes worn with geta clogs and updated them with colorful contemporary patterns. 5-3-10 Minami Aoyama, Minato-ku, 011-81/3-3407-7877, sousou.co.jp.

1. The wines Germany is known for Rieslings, but it's the red wines that garner attention here. Taste Trollingers and Lembergers from private vineyards at Jupiter Wine Cellar (Kelterstrasse 2, Brackenheim-Hausen, 011-49/7135-974-210, jupiterweinkeller.de, tastings from $11.75). 2. The farmers Part of the burgeoning agritourism scene, Rolf and Angelika Hering give tours of their organic sheep ranch, where they sell every color of yarn imaginable (Grüner Winkel 28, Zaberfeld, 011-49/7046-7741). 3. The honey For centuries, bees have been used to pollinate the crops in the area. The Steinhausen family tends 25 hives and sells beeswax lip balm, hand salve, and candles, and 12 types of honey (Rodbachhof 24, Pfaffenhofen, 011-49/7046-881-275). 4. The inns From 1568 until its renovation in 1979, the Herzogskelter served as the town of Güglingen's wine and fruit cellar. Today, it's still the place to go for a glass of Lemberger and some schnitzel, or to stay in one of the 33 warmly simple rooms (Deutscher Hof 1, Güglingen, 011-49/7135-930-610, herzogskelter.de, rooms from $56). 5. The comfort food Forget fusion—Zabergäu is all about traditional specialties like knockwurst, expertly grilled so the outside has snap and the inside is juicy. 6. The architecture The Fachwerk houses are storybook cute, but most of them are sturdy enough to date back to the 1700s.

Zip Line Maui, Hawaii At Piiholo Ranch, a working horse and cattle ranch on Maui, Hawaii's longest zip line takes you screaming over guava trees and gulches filled with native ferns. Part of a five-line tour, Line 5, which measures more than a half mile, even takes in a glimpse of the island's north shore. 808/572-1717, piiholozipline.com, $190. —Carolina A. Miranda Rain Forest Sledding Ocho Rios, Jamaica To train for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, the famed Jamaican bobsled team resorted to careering down the island's Blue Mountains in a modified pushcart. To relive the team's experience, head to Mystic Mountain, an eco-themed park on the country's north coast. Here, thrill seekers hop into a bobsled on rails that tears through tropical forest and down a 3,200-foot track that, at one point, drops 400 feet at almost 30 mph. 876/974-3990, rainforestbobsledjamaica.com, $62. —Sara Morrow Crocodile Hunting Darwin, Australia Meet Choppa, an 18-foot croc who can shred a bull shark with his jaws. At Crocosaurus Cove aquarium, visitors spend 15 heart-pounding minutes in his tank, the Cage of Death. A sturdy acrylic panel separates you from the 1,700-pound reptile—but that doesn't make the experience any less terrifying. 011-61/8-8981-7522, crocosauruscove.com, admission $18.50, Cage of Death $79, reservations required. —JD Rinne Rock and Roll Dreams London, U.K. Crackling amps, glaring lights, the roar of the crowd: Most of us will never know the euphoria of strutting around stage like a superstar. But at London's British Music Experience, you can come close. The 20,000-square-foot interactive exhibit, open since March, has a room full of instruments where you can record your own hits and a studio where footage of you gets spliced into a music video. The grand finale: a room decked out in wall-size video screens, showing excerpts of concerts by the likes of Bowie and the Rolling Stones. 011-44/844-847-2477, britishmusicexperience.com, adults $21, kids under 16 $17. —Alison Rohrs Tiger Tug-of-war Tampa, Fla. Twice a day, up to six visitors to Jungala, a four-acre animal attraction at Busch Gardens in Tampa, get to play tug-of-war with one of the park's 11 Bengal tigers (with the 300-pound beast safely behind a double-mesh fence). Not surprisingly, the tigers have maintained a flawless record—the feistiest feline, a male named Bhutan, usually wins in about a minute. 888/800-5447, buschgardens.com, adults $70, kids 3 to 9 $60. —Amy Chen Defy Gravity Nashville, Tenn. Channel your inner Neil Armstrong at the Sudekum Planetarium in Nashville, where the new Space Chase wing has two activities that simulate the weightless feeling of space. Guests buckle into a harness and, in minutes, are hurtling above the surface of the moon or alongside a spacecraft. 615/862-5160, sudekumplanetarium.com, adults $11, kids under 12 $9. —Beth Collins COASTER WATCH On the rails of the newest adrenaline-pumping rides. The Diamondback Mason, Ohio Named for a deadly viper, this beast opened in April at Kings Island, near Cincinnati. It has 10 vertical drops spread out over 10 acres, but the real thrill is the open-air vehicle itself, with individual stadium-style seats and no sides. 800/288-0808, visitkingsisland.com, adults $32. —Danielle Lipp Ring Racer Nürburg, Germany One of pro racing's toughest tracks, the Nürburgring will also, come July, feature the world's fastest coaster—a monster that can hit 135 mph in under three seconds (and that kicks off near the real track's finish line). 011-49/2691-3020, nuerburgring.de, adults $26. —Mike Iveson Terminator Salvation Valencia, Calif. Debuting along with the latest Terminator movie in May, the new ride at Six Flags Magic Mountain weds the creaky terror of an old wooden coaster with high-tech effects. Expect five gut-scrambling plunges and speeds of up to 55 mph. 661/255-4100, sixflags.com, adults $60. —DL