Don't leave home without it

IPods for tourists: Now you can download foreign phrases and walking tours.

By Kimberly Lisagor

The latest indispensable travel gadget is one you already may own: an iPod. More than 100 million of the portable MP3 players have been sold since they were introduced in 2001. Now, downloadable phrase books and walking tours are reinventing iPods and other MP3 devices as handy travel tools.

See it, hear it, say it
Take phrase books, for instance. Traditionally, a traveler who is looking for the airport baggage claim in a Spanish-speaking country might flip through a phrase book, find the translation and struggle with the pronunciation. A language program like iSpeak (McGraw Hill, $12.95 per language), sold at bookstores as an MP3 audio disc and booklet, lets that traveler scroll to the correct phrase, read the text and hear a Spanish speaker ask, "¿Dónde está el reclamo de equipaje?"

"Being able to see the text and hear it at the same time -- that's the big thing," says iSpeak creator Alex Chapin. "The more modalities you can present the language in, the easier it is to learn."

ISpeak is available in Spanish, French, German and Italian. Phrase book program Ramber (CyraKnow, $19.95 per language) has those four languages, as well as Japanese. ILingo offers six European and four Asian languages (Talking Panda, $49.95 for Europe, $39.95 for Asia).

Portable tour guides
IPods also are changing the experience of getting to know a new city. Instead of joining a group tour or using a guidebook, travelers can customize their explorations with downloadable walking tours.

"This is such a great way to see things with your hands free," says Andrea Reese, co-owner of AudioSteps (audiosteps.com), which sells downloads of sometimes multiple guided walks in five U.S. cities and three British cities for $12 each.

IJourneys (ijourneys.com) offers walking tours that guide travelers through such sites as the Salzburg, Austria, neighborhood where Mozart was born, and a gondola depot in Venice. Downloads cost $14.95, including a map. Soundwalk (soundwalk.com) is known for its unusual menu of themed tours of New York, including a Hip-Hop Walk in the Bronx and two Hasidic Walks (one for men, one for women) in Brooklyn. Most tours are $12.

Another benefit of audio walking tours: "You don't look like a tourist," Reese says. "You're just a person walking down the street with your iPod, like a local."