Here are some essential tools and apps that I use on my phone when travelling:
- an app for making notes on the smartphone for any travel-related notes, such as to note down places where to go, or any other little pieces of information. There is some kind of notepad on every smartphone available, or else open up your store and search for the most popular notepad. π
- skyscanner to buy the flight tickets. This thing is just amazing, it helps you find flight connections and best prices among a range of airlines.
- booking.com to book your hostels and hotels. If you don’t find anything suitable on booking.com, go check also Airbnb.
- A must have is the ability to turn on the flash light on your smartphone. You will need it sooner or later. If you can’t do it easily from the menu, there is an app for that! π
- For adventure travel and trail hiking, running or cycling, download an app which can read GPX files, and find the GPX tracks you need. This is one of my favourites.
- A must have is a navigation application in which you can download maps and store them on your phone, such as Here Maps. If you are abroad and your data charges are high, then a maps application with offline maps will make your life much easier – either when planning how to get somewhere, or when bargaining for the taxi price and knowing “how far it really is to there”.
- If you are travelling to a country with a different currency, install also a currency converter app and make sure it downloads the currency data and works offline.
- If you are more of an adventurer, then CouchSurfing may be a good idea – it’s an app that helps you find couches that people share around your locations. Similar thing, but for sharing a ride to a certain place, is called BlaBlaCar.
- For surf forecasts, I also use magicseaweed application, which is available for pretty much all major platforms, including Windows Phone.
- A compass and a sports tracker app may be useful as well, if you are venturing to the unknown trails – to be able to find back home when necessary.
- If abroad, you should also download an app which will help you text or voicecall with your beloved ones over the Internet – that way, you will save a massive amount of money on the phone. Among the most popular are Skype and WhatsApp.
With all those applications, it is very useful to take with you also a portable batery charger, here are some good and cheap ones. And that’s it! Don’t forget to load your phone with some good music, take the headphones, and you are good to go!
Which apps and tools do you use most when traveling? Any suggestions?
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Author: Matic
Matic is tech startup guy who loves to spend time outside. In his free time he is an true outdoor freak – he tends to surf, run and ride a mountain bike, and in the winter time just loves powder skiing and snowboarding. Matic also loves to travel, often has to because of work, and even more often because he wants to π
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Google Translate was a life saver when traveling to other countries. We used multiple types of maps with different pros and cons – Google Maps, Maps.Me, and Citymapper. We went into more detail on our post on our 10 Top Favorite Apps when Traveling – http://thriftytrails.com/10-apps-a-traveler-cant-live-without/. Soon after we posted it Google came out with Google Trips which we tested briefly and really like as well.
Hi, yes sometimes is hard to find the best app for navigation, so all tips are welcome! Google Trips is cool, but I got pretty scared off all the info google has about me, and for years back! damn.
Cool, there are some I didn’t know!
Happy to help π What we learned (sometimes on a hard way) is that traveling can be so much easier with the right apps.
Thanks for the app suggestions. Couchsurfing is great for meeting people when traveling!
Thank you for sharing valuable information. These tools are amazing to try and useful for every traveler.
Indeed very useful. π