A rundown of all the essential apps for planning a get-away, whether for business or pleasure.
It’s that time of year where we start stocking up on suncream and booking flights. It’s exciting, but traveling brings with it a variety of stresses. Thankfully, most of these stresses are easily mitigated using apps for your smartphone.
With cheap and frequent flights to pretty much anywhere in the world, it’s never been easier to traverse the globe. But that doesn’ t mean that the actual traveling part of it is easy. To help make the whole experience of traveling less of a chore we have compiled the best travel apps available on the market right now.
Our list has a range of different types of apps to cover every aspect of travel, from how to get there, what to do once you’ re there, how to speak to the locals, and even apps to take the pain out of paying for things.
So before you pack those bags and squeeze into your swimsuit, make sure you’ve got these downloaded to your phone of choice. Free iOS, Android iOS Android
Airbnb is now a household name but it wasn’t that long ago that it upturned the way people booked their accommodation on holiday. It used to be that if you were going away you pretty much stayed at a hotel. Or a hostel.
Then Airbnb came along and suddenly you could stay in a beautiful house in the center of a city, or a little cottage out in the middle of nowhere.
The app makes booking your accommodation simple, and also has guides for local inspiration and a section for booking experiences. Free to download, requires subscription iOS, Android iOS Android
Now that Netflix allows you to download your shows and movies, it makes the ideal companion to take on long journeys. If you’ve got hours to kill waiting in departure, or even if you’d just rather watch your movie in-flight without having it interrupted by announcements from the flight crew.
Just remember to put it into airplane mode, and get those movies downloaded at home over Wi-Fi in advance of your trip in order to save on those pricey data roaming charges. Free iOS, Android iOS Android
App in the Air may have a gimmicky name, but there is a reason this app is an Editor’s Choice on the App Store. The app gives you real-time flight updates, gate changes, airport navigation maps and tips, meaning you will never find yourself frantically running through an airport terminal again.
What’s more, you can still receive updates offline so you’ll incur no roaming charges if using the app abroad. Free iOS, Android iOS Android
Booking.com is one of the world’s best known hotel booking websites. Their smartphone app builds on their successful model, allowing you to search for the best deals on over 1 million hotels and homes all across the world. If you’re struggling with where to book, there are over 107 million user reviews to help you decide.
What’s more, once you have completed your booking, you will receive instant confirmation of your booking, complete with paperless check-in and offline maps of the area. Free iOS, Android iOS Android
With over 55 million downloads, XE Currency is the most popular currency exchange rate app on the market, and with good reason.
It gives accurate conversion rates for every currency worldwide, refreshed every minute and stored offline so that even if you lose internet connection, you can still use the app. Free iOS, Android iOS Android
The British Airways app, unsurprisingly, is the app for if you are flying with British Airways. What is surprising is how good it is.
It allows you to book flights, check-in, choose seats, and download a digital boarding pass so you don’t have to go near a printer or check-in desk if you only have hand luggage.
The app has live departure gate and in flight information, meaning you can choose which movies to watch while you wait for your flight to board. Free iOS, Android iOS Android
Cleartrip is an app for booking flights, hotels and trains. Cleartrip was originally founded in India, and while its success means it now has over 10 million users worldwide, there are still regions it doesn’t support so make sure to check you’re in a supported region.
With the capability for securely storing card information, you can do 1-click purchase of plane tickets, meaning you can choose between deals then purchase tickets, all in 60 seconds.
Cleartrip can search for the best deals on hotel rooms in over 15,000 cities worldwide, too. Free iOS, Android iOS Android
Citymapper is essential if you want to be able to move around like a local while abroad. Supporting many major cities worldwide, Citymapper is a map app that you can use to plan a route using any mode of transport the city offers. It gives live updates on delays and closures, and is very intuitive to use.
You can save maps offline and can access the maps for transport services like Tube maps, so if you want to navigate your own way, you can do that too. Free to download, requires subscription iOS, Android iOS Android
If you’re anything like us, heading to a country where they speak a language other than yours makes you wish for the Babel Fish from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy; a little mechanical device that you pop into your ear that instantly translates any language you hear.
While iTranslate isn’t quite that, it is a step in the right direction. With the simple tap of a button you can speak into your phone and it’ll translate into your choice of 90 different languages. The person you’re speaking to then talks into the phone and it translates into your language. Simple!
The execution is still a long way off being perfect, but it does allow you to converse in another language which is pretty cool. What’s even better is that the most commonly used languages have a downloadable pack so you can use them offline. Free iOS, Android iOS Android
If you’re not happy letting an app do your translating for you, you may want to give Duolingo a try.
Duolingo is a language learning app that makes learning a new language easy and fun. If you want to be able to converse with the locals, there are few ways of learning that will get you there as easily as Duolingo. The simple interface and game feel of the app makes learning a new language a pleasure.
The list of languages that Duolingo offers is constantly expanding. Currently you can choose from 23, including Spanish, German, Swahili, and Vietnamese. What’s more, it’s completely free. Free iOS, Android iOS Android
The Expedia app is one of the world’s most popular all-in-one-place booking apps. You can book flights, hotels, rent a car, even book tickets to tourist attractions and theme parks all through the one app.
Expedia has recently rolled out the ability to book bundle deals, so your hotel and flights are all included in the booking, potentially saving you even more money. Free iOS, Android iOS Android
Lonely Planet made its name creating in-depth travel guides. With Guides, you can now get a condensed version of what they are best at, on your phone.
In the app, you can download the guide for the city that you are going to visit, then select what category you want information in. These include things to see, places to eat, places to drink, places to sleep, places to shop, and places to play.
Essential information, including maps and descriptions are all stored offline on your device so you don’t have to worry about roaming charges while you’re away. What’s more, there are even phrasebooks included so you can converse with the locals.
There are over 100 cities catered for in Guides. Free iOS, Android iOS Android
Google Trips is the travel planning app from the search giant. Where Google Trips is different from the other travel planners is that you don’t actually book through Trips – this is the app you use to collate all of the information about your trip, and being Google, it provides plenty of suggestions of things to add once you’re there.
The app pulls in all of your bookings for your trip from your Gmail account and brings them together, meaning if you find deals from a number of different places, rather than having to have a number of different apps, emails and print-outs all giving you piecemeal information, you have your entire itinerary in one place.
What’s more, Google has recently announced that they are introducing a feature letting you share your itinerary.
