Why the Amazon Kindle is a tourist's best friend

ATHENS, GREECE -- The Amazon Kindle's "secret sauce" -- the feature that sets it apart from competitor eBook readers like the Sony Reader -- is unlimited, free wireless mobile broadband access, which lets you auto-download books, magazines and newspapers and give you access to the Internet. The catch: It works only in the U.S. Take it abroad, and its advantage goes away. Or does it?

On my second major foray into the "extreme telecommuting," nomadic lifestyle, I find myself living in -- and working from -- Greece. I've been here in Athens for two weeks, and I've learned three valuable rules: 1) never stop looking for a better connection; 2) never give up on your U.S. carrier; and 3) never leave your Kindle behind. I've dealt with each of these in this three-part series.

I wrote about the first and second rules last week: 1) Never stop looking for a better connection; and 2) never give up on your U.S. carrier. Today I'll tell you why you should never travel without your Amazon Kindle. (If you have one, that is. If you don't have one, good news broke today: For the first time since it launched, there is now no waiting for Kindles -- Amazon actually has them in stock.)

It's true, of course, that the Kindle's wireless connection doesn't work abroad. For now, the Kindle's connectivity is U.S. only. Despite that limitation, I've discovered that the Amazon Kindle is truly indispensible for foreign travel. The reason is the utility of another feature unique among major eBook readers: The QWERTY keyboard.

I can't tell you how many times people have asked me, "why do you need a keyboard on an eBook reader?" The reason: Search.

In fact, the Kindle has two searches: Online, and local. The local search works just like a Google seach, but scans everything you've got on the Kindle.

I've got about a dozen books on Greek mythology, history and related subjects loaded on my Kindle. I also have a smattering of tourist books on Greece, a couple of Greek language books, the Wikipedia entries for both "Greece" and "Ancient Greece," plus a few other Greece-related Web sites. I also have the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, which I continue to download daily over the Internet via my laptop, then move them onto my Kindle.

Whenever I'm curious about something, I just run a search. On the Kindle, just press the "Search" button, type the search and get hits from all content -- including the newspapers.

Yesterday I visited the town of Sounion, which is a pleasant seaside town that happens to contain a spectacular ruin: The Temple of Poseidon.

We all know Poseidon as "God of the Sea." But a quick search on my Kindle en route to the site revealed so much more detail from many sources. I learned that the dude was also God of Horses and Earthquakes, brother of gods Zeus and Hades, husband of Amphitrite, who was the granddaughter of a titan by the name of Ocean. Took me two minutes to learn all this just from the summaries presented by the Kindle Search function, and another 30 minutes to learn a great deal about Poseidon by drilling down into the material. I also learned about the site -- for example, that it was mentioned in Homer's "Odyssey" and that an Athenian King named Aegeus jumped off the cliff there, giving the Aegean Sea its name, according to legend. And a lot more.

By the time I got to the site, I had all the information I needed to really understand and appreciate what I was looking at.

I've been doing this all over Greece. Actually carrying all these books would have been nearly impossible, and searching through them burdensome. The Kindle and its keyboard-enabled Search function have turned out to be a super useful way to travel, and know what I'm looking at.

I've also been surprised at how often my searches get "hits" in the current newspapers. That's something travel books can't do.

The larger lesson here is: The Kindle is awesome for any kind of tourism. It's ultra small and light, holds potentially thousands of books and other content and -- best of all -- the Search function will search through everything loaded on the Kindle and spit out the information you're looking for.