I’m at a local breakfast place. I am testing the “hotspot” capabilities of my phone plan. It works fine. I am

able to provide wifi to my tablet and post this message to this blog.
T-Mobile is pretty good about hotspot. It has no additional cost. Your results with your plan may vary…
Right now I’m in the Barber shop on my phone. Again, this is a test.
I’ve been testing the navigate function of google maps. I sync it to my jabra Bluetooth that is clipped to my car visor. I tell the phone map function to navigate and a voice from the jabra gives me driving instructions. The voice seems to take it in stride if I go by a slightly different route and gives new instructions without comment.

This is the third location (kitchen table) and combination that I am testing. It is using the screen of the tablet propped up with the OTG adaptor connected and using the wireless Logitech keyboard. I am in the WordPress app on the tablet and “editing” (in this case, “adding to”) the post.
This is the nicest for typing and even has full use of the mouse for editing text.
The reason for all this is to show you how it all fits together. If you forget something , you’ll know it. There are a handful of step to check out and that’s what I’m doing. I hope you realize that full Internet and phone service and a good typing experience on a tablet, updating my blog– all for $30/month is a pretty good deal.
A few words about coverage. On Kauai it is somewhat crappy because it is the most remote of the Hawaiian islands, at about 200 miles from Honolulu. I will be staying on the North shore (where some movie stars live) but with 2g service at best. The reason for this is this end of the island is rainy in winter and most of the tourists stay on the south side (Poipu Beach) in winter. That leaves the north in a funny situation. High land values and poorer tourist economy. Fashionable restaurants have to charge an arm and a leg to stay in business and the supply chain is strained. So this is not the place to expect to eat like in New York or Los Angeles or to get 4g data coverage on your phone.

For that reason I downloaded the Kauai map to my Google devices, so I can navigate in “map” with the GPS function and not worry about data coverage. (If this all seems like I’m repeating myself, yes you’re right. But I’m putting it all together so you get it.) I, of course, plan to bring my jabra bluetooth (handsfree) device and clip it to the car visor.
I have had mixed results with pcture navigation on traditional GPS units. For me it’s hard to see. I like the turn-by-turn voice navigation and am a lot more comfortable with that.
I have a two-slot usb charger for the car cigarette lighter. This makes it possible to keep the phone and bluetooth charged while driving.

Back to coverage: T-Mobile is rolling out LTE (very fast) coverage on Maui and Oahu (Honolulu) in a few days. If you’re going there, and have one of the few phones that work with LTE on T-Mobile (like Douglas’ Note 2), your strategy would be different.

With whatever carrier, check their data coverage maps so you know what to expect. Eighteen months ago I knew the coverage mao in the area of Maui I was in and knew I could turn on data for the 10 days I was there if needed. As it turned out, I did, because the hotel wifi was unusable and we had some (believe it or not) school work to turn in. But using the (former) phone as a wifi hotspot worked fine for my laptop.
In a pinch, know where the local Starbucks or McDonnalds is.

I now have the mini tripod and lightweight monopod (walking stick). I’ll be testing them out in the days to come. Gotta go.