From Ubercopters to Uberboats: how the ride-sharing app changed the way we travel

The other day a friend of mine posted a picture on Instagram, boasting that they were using a so-called UberBOAT to hop between the Croatian islands.

An UberBOAT? What next, an UberCOPTER that you can hail with the touch of a button, to chopper you around the French Riviera?

Believe it or not, they do indeed offer that service too.

For many people, the gateway into using the controversial ride-sharing app was in our home towns. It was cashless, often cheaper than traditional metered taxis and removed the need to stand on the pavement with your thumb out. It certainly beat the night bus, and from time to time you could even play your own music and perhaps indulge in a complimentary piece of gum.

But now Uber is disrupting another part of our lives: the way we get around on our holidays.

Since the introduction of free mobile roaming in the EU in June 2017, British travellers can now leave their data turned on across large swathes of the Continent. For the tech-reliant generation the impact of free roaming across Europe has been considerable, making things like Google Maps, emails and TripAdvisor available at all times without the need to pre-load anything or waste time hunting down a cafe with Wi-Fi.

But for me, the biggest benefit of free roaming is that it has made Uber available on holiday. One of the first things I’ll now do after arriving in a city is open up the Uber app - praying that the Grand Theft Auto-style aerial map has a smattering of cartoon cars slowly crawling around it.

Because let’s face it - getting a taxi in a new destination, particularly in a country where you don’t speak the language fluently, can be a stressful experience. In just a few seconds you need to assess if the cab looks legitimate, endure a stumbling conversation about where you’re going, and then cautiously watch the meter climb (if it’s turned on at all) with little idea when it might stop.

Of course, some cities like New York have a very clear and affordable taxi service, and I have plenty of fond memories of chatting to eccentric and knowledgeable cabbies on past trips around the world. But taxis have also brought about some of my least-treasured holiday experiences too. In Istanbul, a driver attempted to charge me five times the agreed fare - getting aggressive when I refused. In Marrakech, a taxi driver stopped to fill up his petrol tank with a cigarette hanging from his mouth.

Uber and other ride-sharing apps have been criticised for putting traditional cabbies out of a job. And there's certainly a wider discussion to be had on this subject. But for the user, the proven quantity of Uber eliminates just about all of the stresses that could possibly arise while hailing a taxi on holiday.

I’m not the only one becoming increasingly reliant on the ride-sharing app. The rise of Uber in the last few years has been quite phenomenal. Uber currently registers around 15 million journeys per day, operating in nearly 700 cities around the world. For anyone who still considered Uber a kind of guerilla network for millennials - take note that just this morning, Uber and Virgin announced a tie-up that would bring ‘door-to-door’ service covering taxi and train tickets in one fare.

Having wisened up to its potential in the holiday sphere, Uber has launched a series of little-known products in popular holiday destinations around the world. UberBOAT services run in the Croatian destinations of Dubrovnik, Split and Hvar during the summer months - allowing tourists to build their own itinerary. In Istanbul, you can hail an UberBOAT to transport six-to-eight people in a speedboat across the Bosphorus.

In Bali there is UberTRIP, offering a driver around the island for five to ten hours. India has a similar longer-distance driver service, UberHIRE, operating in New Delhi, Kochi, Bangalore, Mumbai and Pune.

Then there is UberWINE in Santa Barbara, California, and UberVALLE in Valle de Guadalupe, Mexico, each offering tours around wine countries and allowing users to leave belongings with the driver, who is on-call as and when it’s time to move on to the next vineyard.

Perhaps hardest to fathom is the UberCOPTER, a service running during the summer between Nice and Cannes. After requesting an UberCOPTER, a driver will take you and up to five other passengers to the nearest heliport, where a helicopter will be waiting. On landing, another driver will take you onto your final destination. The whole service costs £141 per person.

Of course, while Uber has launched these fun holiday products and witnessed an astronomical boom in users, the company has endured some serious legal challenges around the world. In October 2016, after a long battle, Uber drivers in the UK were entitled to holiday pay, rest breaks and the National Living Wage. In December 2017, the European Court of Justice ruled that Uber should be recognised as a transport services company, not a digital service - a ruling that would require the company to accept stricter regulation and licensing in the EU. Some countries including Bulgaria, Denmark and Hungary have banned the app entirely.

But in those 700-or-so cities where it does operate, Uber continues to offer a reliable and convenient service. Whether or not they will really put a flying car in the air within two years is one to watch. But when it comes to their scope to disrupt the way we get from A to B on holidays, the sky is the limit.