Pros and Cons of Smartphones During Travel

Your smartphone is your best friend. It may or may not be your best companion when traveling though. Everywhere you go, someone's got a smartphone out taking photos of either themselves or their surroundings.

Cons

1. Distraction

Instead of focusing on taking your travel photography photos, you'll be distracted by feeling the need to make calls.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), every day close to nine people die in road accidents caused by a mobile phone-distracted driver.

2. Less mindfulness

Photos may enhance memory, but you might miss other details like how that flower is oddly blue or how that sandstone formation looks like melting ice cream in the scenery. You delegate memories to your camera and not your brain.

Turning off your phone may make you more observant. You can bring a notepad and a fine liner on your trip, sketching each day's new surroundings even for just five minutes. Others write in a travel journal.

3. Better flash on your digital compact

If you need to use flash to add a pop of light to backlit portraits, they tend to be more powerful, bigger and the light from the flash tends to less harsh on the eyes than the LED flashes found in smartphones. Decent digital compact cameras can be picked up for around £200 - £300.

4. Battery life

It's rare to find a smartphone that will last more than a day of normal use. Long flights, bus rides, and days of exploring often result in a dead phone.

5. Small screen

A 5″ screen isn't ideal for entertainment - books and movies aren't so great on a small screen.

Pros

1. More than a camera

Smartphones can multitask. You can use the built-in map to plan routes, download apps that tell you where places of interest are and also use it as a translator should you need to ask a question and you don't know how to phrase it correctly.

2. Share on social

You can update your family and friends on your travel whereabouts and one of the easiest ways to do this and with a smartphone, you have access to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social networking sites at the touch of a button.

3. Edit-on-the-go

You can use edit the images you've already captured with Adobe Lightroom Mobile so they're ready to be shared with your friends and family when you arrive at your next destination.

3. Your phone will be with you anyway

You're probably not going to be stepping foot on the plane without your smartphone so better take advantage of it.

4. Take the place of multiple devices

When you're trying to reduce space, weight and cost, they can replace multiple devices. You don't need to pack a separate flashlight, map, calculator, music player, or alarm clock.

5. Travel apps

You can send images you capture with your smartphone directly to the cloud. You'll have a back-up of all the images you take so should something happen to your smartphone device.