Personally, I’ve been using Kayak to search for tickets as they have some very handy features that make repeated searching easy, and in the search results offer a chart of pricing history which you can use to help pin point when the cheapest times to travel are.

The two most important things to keep in mind when looking for cheap flights are simply be flexible about when you travel, and when you see a cheap flight, book it right away as it won’t stick around for long.

Even using Kayak’s email alert system to get emails about cheap flights I find a lot of the tickets I get told about have raised to a higher price by the time I get to them, so if you are planning on traveling, just looking for tickets isn’t enough, you need to be ready to grab the bargain when you find it.

I have looked at flock in the past, but it was very early versions and while I liked the idea, it just didn’t deliver anywhere near what I was hoping for. But from the moment I’ve installed the latest version (Flock 1.1) it instantly impressed me how it now comes across as a rich and professional piece of software.

For me, one of the main attractions is the ability to write blog posts off line; Something which will make life much simpler and cheaper when I travel around South East Asia from the end of the year, I’m still researching getting a connection via mobile, and the news the Thailand is rolling out HSDPA makes me feel warm and fuzzy, but that’s all extra expense that I don’t really need. (But I would like it all the same)

The various social networking feeds look like they could be very useful when on the road as I start to cull my list of blogs and try to streamline the way I look at online information. As much as when I travel I will keep connected, I still want to ensure I’m not wasting time poking around sites to find information, and Flock looks like it could be a very useful tool for bringing that information to me.

Since this is the first time I’ve posted with Flock, this post might come out a little funky.

Tags: Blog, Software, Technology, Travel, Flock

Without really looking into the practicality of any of these, here are the first five gadgets that leap to my mind:

Solar Panels on the roof

Gadgets need power, and I don’t need to be burning fuel needlessly, but adding some solar panels to the roof should give me all the power I need – I plan on getting a solar powered backpack too, which has enough juice to power a laptop of PDA/GPS so a whole roof full should be perfectly achievable and useful. Obviously something that needs some research but I don’t see any problem with mounting solar panels on to the top of a camper van.

Satellite Phone and Internet

This is on my must have list, not only can I keep blogging from near enough anywhere in the world and work in the most remote locations on the earth, but it’s unbelievably cool. I’ve already done some initial research into roaming with the BGAN satellite internet connection.

Titanium Inka Pen

These compact pens look amazing and since I came across them on David Seah’s blog I’ve been very tempted to get one. The regular version will do for right away, but when it comes to traveling I’d like the idea of having something as rugged as possible, and the Titanium version of the Inka Pen looks perfect. The fact it can fit on a keyring so easy to carry around near enough anywhere without thinking about it, combined with the fact it can write nearly anywhere make for a really attractive looking pen.

Odd Essay Vehicle Mounted Cam

The idea of having a camera mounted on a car has been mulled around in conversations with friends for ages, so I can’t be sure who came up with it in the first place, I think it was more a general realization that it would be ace to have something rigged up to take a picture at regular intervals, and driving around the world makes this seem like the perfect time to set up some sort of time lapse capture.

GPS

Pretty much a no brainer. GPS is a must for traveling long distances in unknown places and I think driving around the world comes into that category. I’m using the MDA Vario III right now (A rebranded HTC TyTN II/Kaiser) and I’d probably expand that with an antenna mounted on the bus.

It’s very easy to turn up some results that tell you that indeed you can get internet access via a satellite link, but getting some firm prices is a little more tricky. Still, in the end I found one site that offered some all inclusive prices with it’s products.

The technology to get online is called Broadband Global Area Network (Or BGAN for short) which offers a very fast access service, compared to I guess using a voice call and modem type setup. (Which I didn’t look at too closely, since BGAN looks to be exactly the technology I want to be using) and it comes it speeds at upto around 400kbs.

Looking at the costs, a satellite terminal costs around £1500 to £3000 depending on the model, and data costs are about £4.76 per Megabyte, which you buy as a prepaid £900 for 189MB.  Voice costs are about 75pence per minute, which is actually half the price of my mobile providers roaming tariff for more remote locations. So while the whole solution certainly isn’t cheap, it’s not outlandish either, and I’m sure with time I can find some better prices, and of course in a years time the prices might drop down somewhat. Not cheap enough to allow full internet usage, but for email and blogging, there is real potential.