src/_posts/2012-07-19-traveling-with-android.md
---
layout: post
title: 5 tips for traveling with Android smartphones
description: A few tips for traveling with an Android phone
---
I recently spent a month backpacking around western Europe. I didn't want to take my MacBook Pro with me (The kerfuffle with insurance if it was stolen outweighed my need for it), so my main source of information was my [HTC Desire S](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Desire_S). Here are a few notes on stuff I found was useful.
## 1. Improving battery life
One of the main let downs with Android is the crapware networks & manufactures put on the handset (in most cases you can't even uninstall it). So I rooted my phone & put [CyanogenMod](http://www.cyanogenmod.com/) on it. Removing the unused apps gave me about 25% more battery per day.
I also put my phone in Airplane mode when I wasn't using it. I found having my phone in airplane mode used about 1/20 of the battery it would have if I didn't have airplane mode on.
## 2. Improve security
I was fairly paranoid about losing my phone, or my data while I was away. Here are a three apps & one technique I used to keep myself a little safer.
### Prey
[Prey](http://preyproject.com/) lets you keep track of your stolen device via a web interface & in some cases you can take pictures of the people who have taken it. It's also free, so this seemed like a no-brainer.
### SugarSync
I didn't want to lose my photos, so I set up [SugarSync](https://www.sugarsync.com/) to backup the photos I took while I was away, so if I did lose my phone, my photos will still be ok. It also meant that when I was home, my Mac had the photos I had taken already on it ready for me to sort through.
### Set DNS
I used a a few shared wireless hotspots, quite a few of these offered some pretty interesting DNS servers. So I used [Set DNS](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.mytechie.setDNS&hl=en) for rooted android phones to change the DNS servers to the one offered by Google (8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4).
### VPN
I also used a private VPN while I was traveling mostly because I wanted to keep my data secure from anyone listening over wifi or mobile network connections. If you have a VPS, you can install [OpenVPN](http://blog.ninjahideout.com/posts/osx-ubuntu-and-openvpn-in-5-minutes) pretty easily (though make sure your VPS provider is ok about it).
## 3. Finding my way around
Before I went away, I was given a couple of books to help find my way about. However, carrying a big book around a city during the day seemed a little silly. Here are a few apps I used to help find my way around.
### Google maps
Google maps was pretty handy to find my way around town, I also found it was pretty handy to make "My Places" map in google maps to save a few useful locations (Like my hostel & cool things to do during the day). That said, google maps didn't cache the maps I made, so I had to keep downloading them every time I wanted to check it.
### TripAdvisor & Lonely Planet
I found the [TripAdvisor](https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=TripAdvisor) / [Lonely Planet](https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Lonely+Planet,+Inc.) app guides really useful, they listed the top things to do & all the data it needed (about 32mb per city) was downloaded on wifi so it didn't eat to much data.
### FourSquare
[FourSquare](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.joelapenna.foursquared) was really handy for finding awesome places around the cities, though reading the reviews & checking in ate lots of data.
## 4. Dealing with data
Even with lower data roaming prices within Europe, the price of sending the odd tweet or checking google maps was silly. So I picked up a prepaid data sim (it's pretty easy to walk into a phone shop and ask for one, they should only cost a few euros for 1GB data) and used a [Micro Sim Adaptor](http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005SV2H9I/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=B005SV2H9I&linkCode=as2&tag=fulondes-21) to make it work with my phone.
In most cities the signal was pretty awesome, I could download at about 100kb/s. That said, you may want to look into a picking up a [unlocked MiFi](http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005KLOLM2/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=B005KLOLM2&linkCode=as2&tag=fulondes-21) to get more out of your SIM.
## 5. Making calls on the cheap
Calling & texting while traveling looked rather expensive! However with the data SIM I had & jumping onto free wifi, I used [Viber](http://www.viber.com/) (It's like Skype, but not a bloated OTT POS) to make calls & message people.