Escaping from mainland Europe with just an iPhone and a credit card

Jonathan MacDonald, friend of the site and all round mobile marketing genius, found himself trapped in Europe a few days ago — on account of the rather surprising Ash Cloud.

I and the rest of Jonathan’s followers (all 1,561 of them) watched as he and some colleagues arrived at Dusseldorf airport to find out that, “the UK has been cancelled due to a volcano”. Jonathan then chronicled the whole experience as it happened on Twitter. 33-hours later and Jonathan made it back home. What’s fascinating is that he went through almost as many plans as there are letters in the alphabet to try and get back — and each of those plans was underpinned, researched and executed (or at least, attempted) via an iPhone.

Jonathan’s super tales — now live on his blog — illustrate what you can do with a smartphone nowadays (book a helicopter, summon a car and driver, query ferry times), provided you’ve got enough battery. Or you’re smart enough to be able to hide the plug from the hordes of other executives hunting for an electricity source.

Start reading here.