A quick search on google for best travel apps will turn out many results, but these are usually just lists created by people who may not even travel at all! All the apps I mention here have been tried and tested extensively on my travels and they're absolutely essential. If you're getting ready for your next holiday, you should also start thinking about packing and buying some travels gadgets too (CLICK HERE if you'd like to find out what and how to pack for your next trip).
The list below features many apps which have some offline availability but the best thing to do is definitely get yourself SIM card that will work virtually everywhere on the globe. I'd personally recommend getting an inexpensive Surfroam SIM card before you go on holiday (CLICK HERE to get yours).
Best For Looking For Flights
Best For Fare-Watching: Hopper
Hopper analyses billions of airfare and hotel prices a day—as well as its vast archive of historical data—to tell you whether to wait or book your trip.
All you have to do is to type in your destination and a colour-coded calendar will show you the cheapest (and most expensive) dates to fly. Hopper will then recommend whether you should go ahead and buy now, or hold off until the rates get better. If it tells you to stay tuned, you can set up a price “watch” and put your phone away. When the price has dropped to its lowest point and it’s time for you to buy it, Hopper will send you a notification.
Best For Actually Booking Flights: Skyscanner
Skyscanner is a leading travel search engine. It scours the Internet for the lowest possible rates on airfare and hotels prior to delivering those results to its users. Skyscanner is not an online payment processor nor is it a virtual travel agent. When you book a flight and/or hotel using Skyscanner's app, your payment is processed by the airline, hotel or travel agent responsible for securing your reservation. To look for flights, hotels or to hire a car all you have to do is to input your travel dates into the search box and hit enter, you'll then be presented with different options which can be sorted according to various pretences such as price, time of the day, etc. Skyscanner will usually give you the cheapest prices when it comes to booking flights.
Never turn down a second opinion. Despite all the excellent travel search sites available these days, Google Flights is one to add to your list. Use it when you need a quick check on airfare for a round-trip, one-way, or multicity flights. It also lets you explore destinations based on price and dates. Google flights will occasionally give you results that may not appear on more traditional flight search engines. Google flights is however not really an app, but you can add it to your home screen and use it just as if it were one. Google flights is free to use.
Best For Getting About
Best To Find How To Get From A To B: Rome2rio
With data from over 160 countries, Rome2rio is one of the most comprehensive global travel resources. Simply enter any address, landmark, or city as your destination and the app displays info about accommodations and things to do.
Rome2rio also shows you how to get around, and compares costs. The founders said they were inspired by the European dilemma of plane-versus-train. For example, for a trip from San Francisco, USA to Athens, Greece, Rome2rio shows the drive from home to the airport, a flight directly to Athens, and then a drive directly from the airport into Athens. Plus, it shows the price, optional routes and those prices and booking details.
Best For Directions When No Data Is Available: MAPS.me
MAPS.me is the holy grail of offline maps. This awesome maps app lets you download map data for a specific country or region so you can use it at a later stage even if there's no data connection available. This app has saved me a lot of hassle, countless times when no mobile date or wi-fi was available. Although Google Maps will also let you download offline maps of different locations, MAPS.me just works better offline. This handy app is free to use and to download. Maps me is in my opinion superior to many of other similar apps as it takes a more universal approach by being opensource.
If data is available, then my number one go-to travel app is Google Maps. Goggle Maps has many features like street view or the possibility of creating detailed travel itineraries and sharing them that other apps don't allow you to do. I usually use this great app to research destinations before I actually get there and I do make use of the 'add to favourites' option if I find any places that interest me. Google Maps is also great for checking reviews of places you are planning on visiting, like restaurants, and famous attractions. You can also save your maps offline once you're done with your travel planning. Google Maps has other handy features such as letting you know how to precisely get from A to B and will offer different transportation options todo so.
Best For Getting About Safely By Taxi: Uber
Uber is one of the most used ride-hailing apps worldwide, obviously, there are other options worth considering, but UBER is the granddaddy of them all. The way UBER works is by matching you with a driver who will pick you up where you request and drive you to your destination. You can also decide that you don't want that driver based on the reviews they've been given. After you used UBER services you can decide if you want to leave a tip and can also leave a review. As mentioned, depending on your destination, you may want to use apps like Lyft, Bolt, Didi, Grab, Cabify, Taxify, Careem or Gett instead.
Best For Finding Activities To Do
Best For Getting Local Information About Things To Do: Culture Trip
Culture Trip is great for discovering hidden gems. Culture Trip is a hybrid between a city guide publisher and a digital media company. With the app, you'll get to explore a city's personality, culture, offerings, and intricacies through original video series and stories. The app is great if you want to experience a city beyond the obvious tourist attractions. The best part? it's all free. There are other apps that let you do similar things, however, I find Culture Trip to te the most comprehensive.
Best For Booking Tours: GetYourGuide
GetYourGuide is on a journey to transform ordinary trips into extraordinary ones. This app will let you find unique and unmissable things to do in your destination. The app lets you browse and book guided tours with professional guides worldwide. You can book ahead and skip the lines at the world’s biggest attractions. You can also get personalized recommendations before and during your trip to experience all your destination has to offer. This apps also offer refunds in case something goes wrong with your booking. After any tour you take, you can also leave a review.
Best For Connecting With Locals: Meetup
One way to really immerse yourself in your next travel destination is to meet and talk with locals. Meetup can help you connect with people who are interested in the same things as you, even while on vacation. Whether it's cooking, tech, sports, music, or photography—the app will help you find a local community event to make new friends all over the world. Simply create your profile and type into the search box what you're looking for, filter the results by a date of your choosing and that's it, just click join whichever event you're interested in. Bear in mind that some event organizers will ask for a fee or small donation.
Best For Nature Lovers: AllTrails
AllTrails is for nature lovers, hiking enthusiasts, and even those who just want to fit in a cardio workout while on vacation. The app has over 100,000 curated trails—which all but guarantee you'll find one near you—and lets you create and share custom maps with friends. Another option which is more focused on trails in Europe is called Komoot and is also free to download and to join. Both apps work great but since I do go hiking mainly in places which aren't confined to Europe AllTrails is what I used the most. The only downside of these type of apps is that they require you to pay a small fee if you want to have access to the trails' maps offline.
Best For Checking Reviews
Best For Finding Info On The Ground: TripAdvisor
To the unacquainted, TripAdvisor has over 700 million reviews of 8 million destinations to peruse before booking your hotel, dinner reservation, or even planning a day at the museum. Free on both iOS and Google Play, the comprehensive app is available in 28 languages.
You can also follow friends and travel experts for advice that matches your interests, view travel videos, read articles for inspiration and write your own reviews if you're so inclined. Tripadvisor is a true behemoth in the travel industry.
Best For Booking Accommodation
Best For Booking Hotels: Booking
In my opinion, this is definitely the best booking app for hotel rooms. They will consistently find you the best deals even in the most remote destinations on this planet. You can use Hotels.com to make, view or modify reservations and access your rewards status and activity (you get one night free for every 10 booked and stayed). The different available options in terms of accommodations are very well presented and the app's interface is among the best when compared to similar accommodation booking services. You can also review your stay or book your room based on other travellers' reviews.
Best For Booking Hostels: Hostelworld
The Hostelworld app does all the usual things you’d expect an accommodation booking app to do — searches, descriptions, filters — and looks particularly good while doing so. The full-screen interactive map makes it easy to work out whether the hostel you like is anywhere near where you want to be, while those all-important reviews are only a tap away.
Hostelworld is mainly focused on hostels as the name suggests, and thus more geared towards backpackers and occasionally a younger crowd. That said, nothing beats staying in hostels and connecting with like-minded travellers.
Best For Booking Accommodation From Locals: Airbnb
Airbnb lets you rent individual rooms, couches, or an entire apartment from locals. You probably have already heard about this app and may even know someone who rents their spare room through it. Airbnb strikes the perfect balance between hostels and hotels. Plus, if you stay with local hosts, you’ll still get the social aspect of a hostel and so many valuable info about the location you're visiting. The app does everything the website does but at the tip of your fingers. Airbnb also lets you browse and book local experiences such as guided tours, cooking classes, etc.
Best For Staying With Locals For Free: Couchsurfing
Couchsurfing lets you connect with locals who have space in their home for travellers to stay for free. The accommodation is usually nothing fancy (which is why it’s called “couch” surfing) but it’s free, which will help you keep your budget intact. By staying with a local, you’ll get a unique opportunity to learn more about the destination from someone who actually lives there. If you don’t want to stay with a local you can use the Hangouts feature to meet other travellers or locals for coffee, drinks, or to do something like visiting a museum. It’s a great way for solo travellers to connect and be social. This app is a must for every budget traveller. After all these years the app is still going strong. You can also become a host once you're back from your travels.
Best For Online Security
Best For Privacy When Online: Hotspot Shield Free VPN
Not only is Hotspot Shield free, but it's also one of the better-known VPN options. There's, of course, the option to buy a plan where you won't see any adds and have no data limit but with an allowance of 500MB of data per day, this will probably be more than enough to check your Facebook and use google maps. If security is your sole aim, then Hotspot is on the same wavelength, boasting 'military-grade encryption' - comforting if you do your banking and shopping online or by mobile.
Hotspot Shield is also very user-friendly whether on its mobile version or on desktop, you won't find it the hair-pulling user experience offered by some competitors.
Best For Keeping Track Of Your Spending
Best For Keeping Track of Your Budget: Travelspend
TravelSpend is an app to track your spending while travelling the world. It's perfect for you if you are planning your next trip or are already on vacation. If you travel in a group you can share expenses with friends and family to see “who owes who.” This app is for travellers like you - no matter if you are a solo traveller on a round-the-world trip, a couple backpacking together or a group of friends on a weekend holiday. You can also download a list of all your expenses after your trip has come to an end. The app is free but it also offers a very competitively priced premium plan for some more advanced features.
Best For Currency Exchange
Best For Different Exchange Rates: XE Currency
Maybe you've used their website for currency exchange rates but they also offer an excellent app for you to use when out and about during your travels. XE Currency is the ultimate best way to avoid getting overcharged abroad (or just making costly mistakes). The app lets you save up to 10 different currency exchange rates simultaneously which you can even use if you find yourself in an area without any mobile data/wi-fi availability. Just remember to actually connect your mobile to the internet every now and then to update the different exchange rates which do fluctuate over time.
Best For Different Occasions
Google Translate is simply put, the best translating app you may have probably already used. Not only does this app let you translate text by manually typing it in, it can instantly translate audio, or translate physical text if you access your phone's camera, how cool is that! Google recently switched to translations based on machine learning, making the results much better, especially for difficult translations like Japanese to English. The beauty of using this app is that you actually download the languages you need so that you can translate anything you may require even if offline.
Best For Saving It For Later: Pocket
Pocket is like a cloud-based service for when you simply don't have time to finish reading an article or for when you've opened too many tabs on your internet browses and it's now 4 a.m. and you need to actually hit the sack. Just hit the share icon and select the Pocket app icon, that's it, you've saved that article. All saved articles will show up as a simplified version of the webpage you're previously reading. If you do have an active internet connection, you can actually link back to the original webpage of that article. Pocket will definitely help you during your travels as it can be used as an offline resource for things such as saving articles you find on this website.
Google Drive is the cloud-based storage option I use. The reason I use this app and no, for instance, dropbox is the fact it integrates beautifully with other services from the google family-like google photos, google docs, etc. Just make sure your phone is set up to sync with either Google Drive and that if you're also using a laptop you download it and upload any files you wish to back up that you may have on your computer or perhaps an external hard drive. Once they are in the cloud you'll be able to access them from anywhere. Google Drive gives you 15 GB for free but you can buy more space if required.
Best For Conversions: Metric Converter
The world is filled with different, people, different places, different cultures and unfortunately different metric systems. One way to contravene this is to download Metric conversions. This little app will make sure you'll never be baffled by Celsius temperatures or suitcase weight in kilos again. Whether you’re measuring flour to cook pizza at your Airbnb in Mumbai, figuring out distances for your USA road trip or deciding whether or not to take a sweatshirt with you during your tour of the Fjords in Norway, this app has got you covered with easy conversions in volume, weight, temperature, area and more.
Best For Preventing Jet Lag: Timeshifter
The worst about long flights is probably the dreaded Jet Lag. But now there's an app to help you minimize the effects of this unpleasant temporary disorder. If you have an international trip booked and want to avoid the typical grogginess caused by Jet Lag then you should give Timeshifter a try. The app was developed by actual scientists who used sleep and circadian neuroscience to help inform the personalized jet lag plans they craft for you. Even astronauts and elite athletes have used it to arrive at their destinations in tip-top shape. The first jet lag plan is free, so try it out on your next adventure across the world and see if it works for you as it has definitely helped me countless times.
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