The Toys Of Summer No more "Are we there yet?" whining. With the latest satellite-based car accessories and a snappy new videophone, getting there is half the fun.
By Peter Lewis

(FORTUNE Magazine) – Ah, the summer road trip. Back in the Sputnik era, when my brother and I were young, Mom and Dad would plop us in the back seat of the Rambler for the 14-hour drive to Colorado. Back-seat bloodshed would commence within minutes. Bored to the fringes of fratricide, my tormentor and I would spend the next 800 miles pinching, punching, biting, and howling in pain and outrage while Mom and Dad threatened to abandon us at the next gas station.

Today's kids--and their parents--have it easy, thanks to technology. For the kids, SUVs and minivans can be transformed into rolling multimedia-entertainment centers equipped with back-seat DVD video systems, game consoles, iPods, and assorted other digital pacifiers. Back-seat brawls are still inevitable, but now they arise not from boredom, but over which movies to watch.

These days I'm in the front seat on summer road trips, and I've discovered some new dashboard toys for grownups. After all, why should the kids have all the fun?

For me, a journey of 1,000 miles begins with a good global positioning satellite (GPS) navigation system, a satellite radio receiver, a versatile mobile phone, and a little device that sniffs out roadside Wi-Fi connections for my laptop.

Whoever said "It's the journey, not the destination," never rode with my mother. Just as surely as Dad started every vacation drive with a jaunty cry of "We're off like a herd of turtles," Mom would soon be questioning his sense of direction and choice of routes.

Too bad Dad didn't have Garmin's clever StreetPilot 2620 GPS navigator (list price $1,500, but considerably cheaper online), a brick-sized gadget with a built-in GPS antenna. It plugs into the cigarette lighter socket. With accuracy within ten feet, the 2620 tracks the vehicle's location by reading signals from satellites thousands of miles up in space, and maps your position on any street, road, or highway in the U.S., as well as in major areas of Canada. (A European version is also available.)

The 2620, an updated version of Garmin's popular 2610, is notable for its simple setup and ease of use. It contains a hard-disk drive that stores all the detailed maps needed to drive coast to coast, along with millions of data points for finding gas stations, restaurants, hotels, and local places of interest. Most other GPS systems require the user to download specific area maps from the Internet, and that can be a nuisance. Roads and cities do change, though, so the 2620 includes a USB port for downloading updated maps. The maps are displayed on a color LCD touchscreen that's easy to view both at night and in bright sunlight, allowing everyone to see the car's position on the maps. (It even comes with a remote control, allowing kids in the back seat to ask and answer the traditional "Are we there yet?" just by pressing a button.) The 2620 quickly and automatically calculates routes from origin to destination, or it lets the driver build a custom route through specific places. To keep the driver from staring at the maps instead of the road, the Garmin then announces driving directions aloud--sort of the way Mom used to, only more calmly.

There are permanent and temporary alternatives for mounting the Garmin on the dash; I prefer the temporary setup, a tacky beanbag--tacky in a good way--that holds the 2620 securely in all but extreme off-road conditions. It also makes it a bit easier to move the GPS system to my wife's car when she lets me drive it.

So the route has been determined and the prospect of getting lost has been banished by the GPS system, but there's still the problem of being in radio limbo when you're miles from nowhere. Once again, satellites to the rescue.

Delphi's XM Roady2 satellite radio receiver ($130, plus $10 a month for an XM subscription) pacifies fidgety adults as well as children. Not much larger than an iPod, the Roady2 delivers 120 channels of near-CD-quality audio entertainment plus 20 custom stock quotes, even in places where the only radio choice might once have been country twang mixed with evangelism and pork-belly prices.

I had the Roady2 working in my truck in less than ten minutes, including registration. Again, because I wanted the freedom to move the Roady2 between vehicles, I used a temporary mount to clip it to an air-conditioning vent. Then, one plug goes to the cigarette lighter, one wire to an antenna held to the car's roof by a magnet, and one to a cassette adapter for piping the music through the car's sound system. (If your car lacks a cassette player, the Roady2 also has a built-in FM transmitter that beams the music to a vacant channel on the car's radio.) The trickiest part is tucking away the antenna wires where no one will get tangled up in them.

The last time I compared XM Satellite Radio and its principal rival, Sirius Satellite Radio, I gave the nod to Sirius because it offered commercial-free stations; XM was cheaper, but its users had to endure advertisements on many channels. My rationale was that people who pay a premium fee for satellite radio should not have to listen to commercials. Since then, XM has eliminated commercials for most broadcasts and thus removed my main complaint as well.

XM has more than two million subscribers, compared with about 250,000 for Sirius, in part because of XM's superior technology. Example: Delphi's Roady2 XM receiver is smaller than anything offered for Sirius, and it also fits into the new Cambridge SoundWorks PlayDock PD200 amplified portable speaker system ($200), which lets Roady2 owners listen not just in the car but also at home or on the beach.

And while frolicking on the beach, I can capture and send video postcards to the relatives back home using LG's new VX7000 mobile video and camera phone ($180 with a two-year Verizon contract). It takes 15-second video clips that can be sent instantly via e-mail or directly to another Verizon videophone. It takes still pictures too, with a swiveling lens and even a built-in flash, but the sub-megapixel quality is nothing to write home about. Data service subscribers can also keep track of the latest news headlines and sports scores, and send and receive text messages. Or, I suppose, they could just call someone, wirelessly, to talk. How quaint.

Finally, because I don't leave home without my laptop, I pack the keychain-sized Chrysalis Wi-Fi Seeker ($30), which detects wireless 802.11b/g Internet hot spots at gas stations and truck stops. Too bad it can't detect highway patrol speed traps. F