The best thing about mobile devices is we can use them as we travel. The worst thing is, when we move a little, it usually doesn’t have the infrastructure needed to function. For example, I can think of the Blackberry I’ve been testing for a few weeks. Receiving emails anywhere and being able to answer them is indeed an extraordinary working tool. Until we reach the GPRS (the standard GSM net, the most used in mobile phones) net covered area. That is, we can’t go too far away from urban areas, or our Blackberry will not have signal. Not to mention notebook computers and its WiFi needs, or even count on normal signal on mobile phones. There are many mobile devices, but at least in most of Latin America, the basic infrastructure is limited to more populated areas.

Now well, many people are surprised that the Net doesn’t have more travel related applications that can be executed from a mobile device. There are tools such as Splash Travel, available for Palm OS, but not much more. I believe such absence is absolutely logical. What’s the point in creating such a social network that work in a mobile device for travelers, when most of the planet lacks of ubicuous locations to Internet? Even if Wimax started to expand rapidly, the possibility of internet connection available in most of the country is a long, 10 years perspective, or longer. Will web applications for mobile devices take that long to arrive? In our region, in the south of the world, it’s most likely. In Europe, where distances are shorter, they will appear much sooner -and in fact, tests of social networking for mobile phones are already being done in this area of the world.

If you want to read more about the topic of Mobile 2.0 - that is, the arrival of collaborative and participative tools for mobile devices- you can read the excellent summary published by Read/Write Web (thanks to Juan Pablo Paradelo for the info). For a more comprehensive definition of Mobile 2.0, check out Dan’s Blog.

Hotel Reservations is a reservations site. But don’t let its name mislead you: you can also buy airflight tickets and vacation packages, even rent cars. The service is available in english and spanish. While the homepage indicates it operates in countries such as the US, Canada, France, Great Britain, Spain, Italy, and other european nations, you can actually search through a lot more cities. If you’re looking for hotels in Asia, Latin America or Africa, just do your search and you’ll get a good number of results.

The site has many parts. The main is the hotel, travel packages and car rent search engine. There you only have to give some information, such as the city, and other requirements according to the search, and you’ll get results along with the price. In the case of hotels, besides, you can also observe extra information on every one of them and its location on the map. You can refine the search, and indicate if the hotel we’re looking for must have a pool, or allow pets, among other requirements.

While the reservations can be made directly from the Web, you can also do the transaction through the phone. The site has also many useful sections for those who wan to travel, such as travel guides for a large number of countries, and a very interesting search engine of places to visit within the US. Just enter the zip code, the number of hours you want to drive, and in what direction you want to go. Possible destinations will appear marked in the map, next to the route to take.

This entry is sponsored by Review Me.

Starting april 1st, the european community will begin to formally demand every bolivian citizen that enters this region to previously obtain a visa. According to official sources cited in the spanish newspaper El Pais, this measure was taken due to the “intense migratory pressure” from Bolivia. Other countries of the area already in the list of nations that need a visa include Colombia, Peru and Equator.

Despite the declarations made by spanish and european community’s authorities, it seems pretty obvious that in a short term other latin american countries will be added to the list. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m not usually optimistic in these issues. And even less, if we analyze how has the migratory policy and the US - Europe tourism regulation evolved, with increasingly more strict measures.

A couple of weeks ago, I had to go to a travel agency, and on the computers you could see a paper sign with the entry demands to the European community. A certain amount of money per day, credit cards, round trip tickets with no more than a 90 day stay in the region, etc. And I thought, while an european backpacker can travel almost anywhere in the world with a relatively small amount of money and have a long trip, most of us are not allowed to do that. Eventually, only thos with the right passport will be able to backpack around the world. Or am I being to pessimistic today? (Thanks, José, for the notice).