Who in their right mind doesn’t like to travel? Right? Don’t we all like exploring the world? Knowing about new things and physically being in the places our teachers always told us about? Or the ones we saw online? This hobby of being wanderlust is exciting enough, but it comes with its own share of problems. Will that place be good enough? Will you get affordable lodging and food? Can you take the family along? The list doesn’t seem to end anywhere. True, smartphones take care if that in most cases but what if you could actually have a virtual tour of the place? What if you could see the full place from the comfort of your couch? Magical, isn’t it? This has turned into a reality and not just a dream. Augmented Reality, more widely known as AR has made it possible!
The advancement in this technology means that you can easily take a tour of the place you want to visit and then decide if you want to go or not. This is not to be confused with Virtual Reality that displays an artificial environment. The Augmented Reality makes use of the traveller’s real-time environment, couples it with a 3D environment and voila! You are good to visit the place you want to visit!
There are a lot of sectors today which are investing heavily in Augmented Reality to provide incredible experiences to their customers and in turn, boost their sales. The tourism industry has also recently started exploiting this field, revolutionizing the experience in an unprecedented manner.
Here are some ways in which Augmented Reality can turn your travelling experience into a magical memory-
1) Know About the Hotel:
While you can book a room online or through phone, you can never be sure enough about how good or wrong the hotel will be. AR solves the problem for you and allows you to view the hotel room in 3D so that you know whether you should book a room with that particular hotel or not.
2) Providing Real-Time Navigation:
If you are travelling to a new place and you aren’t aware of the directions and routes, the trip may turn into a nightmare. There are chances that you may either get lost or delayed. AR has the facilities of providing the maps with digital elements added to it. It includes arrows for direction, road maps, images of notable landmarks nearby and much more.
3) Helps in Language Translation:
Suppose you make a detour to the pyramids of Egypt and you have no knowledge of the dominant language of the country, i.e. Egyptian Arabic, what will be your state? You will stuck throughout the trip, right? Augmented Reality takes care of that as well. It acts as a live translator for you. You can easily scan any signboard, document, bill and it gets translated into the language of your choice. While English is one common language across the globe, you can’t always be sure that people in that particular country will know that language.
AR becomes your friend when you travel. You don’t need a physical guide anymore. Everything can be managed with just one click. To make everything convenient, there are several AR apps available on Google Play Store such as Augment 3D, AR effect, Osja AR and several others. So the next time you travel, make sure you have equipped your phone with one such app. Happy travelling!
