The 2008 Kentucky Derby is May 3, 2008. I’m planning to go there with some old college buddies. Since the Derby is 2 weekends from now hotel prices in the area are astronomical. As such we’ve decided to be a little adventurous and we will try to camp somewhere in Kentucky for nights (Friday and Saturday) around the derby area. By camp I mean tent or cabin not RV. Most of the “camp” sites I have seen thus far are for RV camping.

Look at a Google Map of the Campgrounds listed below.

A basic Google search for “camping near Louisville, kentucky” does not yield many good results. However, after perusing various local chamber of commerce and Kentucky tourism websites I found Kentucky’s Derby Region. This appears to be Kentucky Camping Gold. I have yet to look it over in detail but they have a good list of campgrounds in Kentucky’s derby region

Some highlights include:

• Elizabethtown Crossroads Campground
• Guist Creek
• Lake Jericho
• Nolin Lake
• Otter Creek

• Rough River Dam State Resort Park

Indiana: solid alternative

Indiana has at least 2 large parks near Louisville that may provide a better value than the other campgrounds in Kentucky proper. These Indiana campgrounds are also closer to Louisville than some of the other sites in the list above!

• Deam Lake
• Charlestown State Park

• Indiana State Park Rates & Fees

I also noticed that West Point is somewhat near to Louisville. West Point has at least one promising camp site within 1 hr of Churchill Downs.

http://www.westpointky.org/tourism.shtml#recreation
Salt River Recreation Area
99 Salt River Drive
West Point, KY 40177
502-922-4065
Camping: $10 per night (no hook ups)
Directions: From the north or south, U.S. 31W to Salt River Drive

I just activated 3G internet service on my AT&T cell phone (Samsung SYNC A707) with pleasing results. Here are a few fine websites that have special mobile-versions of their website.

Summary (continue below for descriptions)

• SF Bay Area BART
• SkyScanner
• United Airlines UA2Go
• Northwest Airlines
• Travelocity
• Usablenet Mobile Portal

• Kayak Mobile

SF Bay Area BART
http://www.bart.gov/wireless

When I’ve just landed at SFO, I check the BART website to see when the next BART train out of the SFO airport terminal is. This way I know if I have to run like hell or if I can take my time. Priceless. Notable: the BART is convenient to the International Terminal near Check-in area 1.

SkyScanner
http://mobile.skyscanner.net/en/gbp/main/flights-from/us/cheap-flights.ashx

This is a UK or at least European based website that gives actual flight price information — albeit in GBP (Great Britain pounds). So take 2x of whatever price they give you.

United Airlines UA2Go
http://ua.flightlookup.com

United Airlines flight status for arrivals and departures. This handy little website saved me from rotting for 2 hours in the Portland Airport when I found out my flight was delayed. That extra 2 hours gave me time to do a little shopping and have a pre-flight snack. Yay!

Northwest Airlines
http://mobile.nwa.com/mt/www.nwa.com

Northwest Airlines almost a full translation of the entire NWA website into a mobile incarnation. Awesome. You can actually check prices dollars AND award mile prices. NWA is soon to be merged with Delta. I wonder how that will affect their website.

Travelocity
http://mobile.usablenet.com/mt/http://www.travelocity.com/

Itinerary for your travel arranged via Travelocity. Also able to search flight schedules (but no prices) and check flight departure/arrival information for most airlines. Useful but not awesome.

Usablenet Mobile Portal
http://usablenet.mobi/mt/portal/index.html

Usablenet created several of the mobile experiences I listed above. Most of the sites that Usablenet gets credit for are high quality mobile internet experiences. These guys should be considered the benchmark for good mobile web. Yes there are better experiences out there but the basic interaction pattern they use is effective and not so different from websites. The usablenet portal has links to most of its portfolio of clients. This includes info for airlines, transit (rail, bus, etc), certain major hotel chains, and car rentals among other things.

Kayak Mobile
http://www.kayak.com/moby

Kayak has an promising beta version of a mobile site in the works. They have action-based terms like “eat”, “sleep”, “fly”, “think”, and weather. Flight search and hotel search do not work. Weather and Eat will bring back results. From an HCI perspective their task-based navigation is compelling. I look forward to the day when this website is fully functional.

Friday I went to Bay Meadows Racecourse to watch the ponies run. On special Fridays they have an awesome deal — $1 admission, $1 beer (7-8PM MGD only), $2 beer (after 8PM MGD only but bigger cups), and $1 hot dogs. The “gotcha” is the $4 parking fee. My evening of 2 hot dogs, 4 beers and gambling losses cost me about $22.