Top 5 iPod Travel Downloads

1. iTunes Travel Music

If you're traveling with an iPod, you're already moving with music. Check out an iTunes mix of get-up-and-go travel tunes made by me with travel in mind, with help from World Music Guide Megan Romer. Let travelers know about your own iMix to fly by -- just make a playlist from iTunes File menu, click the arrow to the right of your travel mix, and publish. Fiql is another great source for travel music mixes to roll by -- take one down and pass it around.

2. iToors Travel Podcasts

Plenty of travel podcasts have popped on to the scene -- trouble is, you need a scorecard before you download. Search no more -- iToors travel podcasts teamed with Rough Guides are sure bets. The Glasgow walking tour set to Scottish indie music rules, and "Subversive Scribes" talks the tour-taker past spots where famous scribblers as diverse as Dylan Thomas and Douglas Adams ("Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy") wrote, misbehaved or starved in sometimes not-so-long-ago London. Liked it.

3. Subway Maps for iPods

National Geographic Traveler first spotted this one: iSubwaymaps.com is an excellent subway map source -- download all the undergrounds and subway maps you'll need to learn to love on any trip, from London's terrific tube to New York's prehistoric-ish pits. With a subway map on your iPod and a true heart, you may come to love the journey itself, grasshopper.

See also: "How to use the London tube" -- step by step guide with photos.

4. Move Maps to iPod Without Video

iPodSoft provides a way to download driving directions to your iPod -- no maps, though. Easy workaround from Mathew Honan (Six Slick Hacks for Your iPod): take a screenshot and download that to your iPod via iPhoto albums. Ah hah.

You don't know in advance where you'll be lost, but you can make a screenshot of any city center on your itinerary. Get free maps:

• Paris
• London
• Rome

Or try picture street maps from Via Michelin, like this one: see a map of the Paris neighborhood around the Louvre.

5. Language Audio Books for iPod

In-flight audible language books downloaded to your iPod mean productive use of flight time -- learn key phrases and grammar in Italian, French, Spanish or 16 other languages at your leisure on long flights, and reaccess content anytime to brush up after you land. Audible.com has an iPod / iTunes relationship -- set up an account and activate it in iTunes and you're good to go. About $10 for about an hour of lingo learning.

Search audio language book downloads