iPhone coffee finder. iBrew? iBean? The more you travel, the more you’ll be asking for your app to flash red when it’s not actually coffee being served, but Nescafe.

Am iSafe? I’m wondering if some fledgling apps like this exist. Would be really useful, for travelers (and for home buyers and apartment renters, for that matter).

Crazy Landlord. Oh my god, laughing. We’ve been pretty fortunate, but I’ve heard some horror stories.

Really like the contest idea. Great ideas all around.

@Mariza: Being lead astray with all those recommendation sites, are we? I hear ya’. There’s gotta be a better way. If I could build an app to get closer to the truth of the experience, I would. One of these days.

Maybe the app you are talking about is called iShill. On the internet, shills are a dime a dozen. Sometimes it’s tough to plow through their spam.

The transit app is brilliant and doable, I’d think — even the cabbie rip-off identifier. (There’s an app in Bangkok where people submit feedback on the safety and friendliness of cabbies.) The case where the app suggests you walk instead is the magic nugget, particularly in a city. Nothing worse that sitting, languishing in traffic.

As for all those detectors, maybe they can be add-ons 🙂

Thanks for some great suggestions!

1. KIller Coffee Finder: Having owned a cafe, I can’t stand bad coffee and trying coffee is always risky when you’re in a new place. I’d love to have an app that pulls and analyzes ratings and reviews from multiple sources and gives me a “potential for disappointment” score for each cafe and coffee house in an area.

2. Area Danger Alert: It pulls local crime statistics and cross references with violent crime news and assigns an overall “danger score” to any area you’re thinking of exploring.

3. Crazy Landlord Checker – A listing of crazy landlords (and why they’re crazy) in all major cities where someone might want to rent a short-term furnished apartment or house.

Consider this: Run a contest to find the best submission and partner with an app developer that wants the PR and have them build the app. Poll your fans to discover the most wanted features of the winning submission.

@Matt: Oh man, you have captured the dreams of generations of travelers with that one. We’re in Berlin now with a “shelf” toilet. Will the Toilet Transformer transform it?

@Jordan: Post the links where you’ve found them ;0

@Erik: Channeling Star Trek for our Earthbound travel adventures, are we?

@Stuart: Another one that seizes the dreams of just about every traveler out there.

The story of the missing laundry strikes a nerve. I’m sure we’ve all experienced it. But I’m now in particularly short supply because of laundries in Buenos Aires and Thailand.

@shannon: Actually, this is one of the more realistic ones, I imagine. I don’t doubt that someday accessibility might be an overlay in Google Maps.

@Joan: In truth, I can only dream. For now, at least.

@Shannon: Wow. This is a good one. We have a friend who sets alarms for each and every thing he needs to be reminded of. We once had him over for dinner and put a bottle of wine in the freezer to chill. 20 minutes later, an alarm. I’m not disciplined enough. And I would need an app to do this for me intelligently and automatically.

@Robin: I’ve asked others to do the same 🙂

I could have used that. I think there’s a bag somewhere in Delhi airport. And also a box of desirable reading material floating around somewhere between the U.S. and Prague.

@Sailor: Mumbai has some of the best street food around. But I too have been bitten by that bug (particularly on my first trip there in 1997).

@Pete: Based on experience? For me, certainly:
https://uncorneredmarket.com/facing-fears-wiping-out-getting-up-again/

@Yolene: The app-less app. The reality is that we’ll always need to be MacGyver, even if he exists in some form in our iPhones. Problem-solving is indeed at least half the fun. And the results often provide more than half the stories.

@Henry: Thanks.

@Anne: That’s a good one. Not just for the jungle, but for national parks in the U.S. like Yosemite where if you leave food in your bags, you’ll attract the bears.

Any app that makes mosquitos and sand flies vanish would be an instant purchase for me.

@Alouise: The translation app would be popular. There are apps that are close, but still clunky. I think those are within reach.

@Scott: Thanks. Glad you got a chuckle.

@Liv: How readers react to this list is in fact a personality test 🙂

@Brent: Wow. I’ve been there and thought that. Funny suggestion. I know some murky bodies of water just screaming for that app.

@Peter: Glad you enjoyed it.

@Petina: It was fun. We had a good laugh, particularly when we recalled the experiences that motivated the idea.

@LB: That sounds like the Magic 8 Ball. Did you do something like this:
https://uncorneredmarket.com/facing-fears-wiping-out-getting-up-again/

Or did you just have to deal with mud? The timing of your comment is funny…we just recommended someone to ride a motorbike in No. Vietnam around Sapa and Bac Ha. But during the rainy season, I imagine it’s a little sticky.

@Kenny: Know that you are in good company. We can commiserate. In retrospect, it’s part of the experience though, isn’t it? (I know that’s all rationalization on my part.)

@Agne: It would be. Certainly for me. I might never put my iPhone down.

@Amy: They are spells in a way, I suppose.

The currency exchange app idea is amazing. But imagine if you had this, you could play arbitrage buying from one and selling to another. The possibilities are fun to consider.

Your “photo cliche” app would be precious. Like facial recognition, it would have a travel photographer cliche recognition algorithm and give you a thumbs up or down based on the uniqueness of your eye. Brillant!

The “Eye Crush It” (this is a reference to an ancient TV show Kids in the Hall) app is also terrifically creative. Holding up the Taj Mahal and crushing the Leaning Tower of Pisa between your thumb and forefinger. Love it.