Rent an iPad During Your Vacation to Madrid, Spain

Forget about buying travel guides. Why not rent an iPad for the duration of your vacation? If you're going to Madrid, Spain, you can do exactly that. A company called Pad in the City will rent you a 3G iPad for €39 ($55) per day, with unlimited data and a bunch of handy travel apps preinstalled.

It works like this. You reserve the iPad ahead of time and, when you arrive at your hotel, apartment, airport, railway station, wherever, a courier will hand-deliver the iPad to you. He will check your ID, block a €500 deposit on your credit card and hand over the tablet. At the end of your stay, he'll come back and collect the iPad and un-block the security deposit.

It's a fantastic idea. An iPad is a really handy travel companion. I was in Madrid a few weeks back for a long weekend and used mine constantly. I live in Spain, though, so I have my own 3G contract, but for visitors this seems ideal. Apps include offline maps, subscriptions to the WSJ and other U.S rags, weather, Angry Birds (yes!), The Lonely Planet Guide to Madrid, car rental apps (hint — parking and traffic are a nightmare in Madrid), a unit converter, a metro map (use this) and more.

In fact, this service gives me an even better idea. What about a vending machine at the airport that will sell you a pre-pay micro SIM card for your iPad? That way you could take your own iPad on vacation and still have 3G. After all, the actual card costs the cellphone carrier almost nothing, and a vending machine is perfect to avoid pesky language barriers for tourists. Heck, if I was contractually allowed to ever leave my (admittedly comfy) blogging chair, I might even look into doing it myself.

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