By Kateryna Kirian & Kate Chyzhykova
When it comes to travelling, people rely on their smartphones more than ever. No wonder mobile apps have become almost irreplaceable. They are immensely useful for browsing deals, booking tickets and managing your trip logistics. However, there’s more to it. Want to book a table at a restaurant? Discover a hiking trail? Find a good cycling route? Make sure you don’t miss out on an exhibit of a famous artist? There’s a mobile app for each of those activities, and often multiple. All within arm’s reach on your smartphone, so always with you.
Check out some of the apps that’ll ensure you never ever get lost on your way to a dream destination. We’ve prepared some ideas on how to upgrade your travel to a pro level.
❕ Just for you to know – the mobile apps we recommend are NOT sponsored ads. It’s just something that worked for us. So we are hopeful they’ll amplify your travel experience, too.
Which mobile apps can you expect?
📍 #7 Organize your trip itinerary with TripIt
📍 #6 Improve your travel check-lists with PackPoint
📍 #5 Optimize your travel budget with TravelSpend
📍 #4 Find a place to stay & make new friends with Couchsurfing or Airbnb
📍 #3 Save food & save the planet with Too Good To Go
📍 #2 Communicate beyond boundaries with Google Translate
📍 #1 Navigate like a pro with Maps.me
#7 Organize your itinerary with TripIt ✈️
Organization (of your itinerary) is the key to stabilization (of your mind)
Organizing a trip takes lots of efforts. Moreover, there’s always this feeling that you might’ve missed something. So it’d be really great to keep all your plans, itineraries and events in one place. However, with TripIt it’s possible to organize all your travel plans in a jiffy. Just forward your confirmation emails to them, and let the app do the rest. This mobile app really enables you to manage your travel like a pro. Check out what it includes.
✔️ Adding flights, hotels, restaurants, car rentals and events to your schedule.
✔️ A mobile itinerary automatically synchronizes new bookings with your calendars & inbox, and is available offline. So, when you make changes in one calendar, it’ll appear on your travel route in TripIt.
✔️ Tracking your carbon footprint & ways to offset carbon emissions of your flights.
✔️ Useful info about the latest COVID-19 restrictions in your destinations.
✔️ You can upload photos, PDF docs & photos to have everything in one place.
✔️ Suggestions on how to navigate your trip (local transportation & places of interest).
✔️ Includes airport maps to ensure you’ll make it to your next point.
Traveling is sharing, and mobile apps are the enables
Another advantage of TripIt app is an instant update of plans for all friends & family who are traveling with you. Just add an event to the calendar, and other travelers will get the notifications. You don’t need to do the copy-pasting any longer.
If you upgrade a mobile app to a pro version, it will provide you with alternative routes when your flights get cancelled. Also, it’ll send you automatic notifications from airlines about flight delays & cancellations.
#6 Improve your travel check-lists with PackPoint 🧳
Want to avoid loads of stress while packing for your trip? Always dreamt of Neville’s Remembrall to remind you when you’ve forgotten to pack travel must-haves? Great news! There are mobile apps that are really handy for travelers who want to keep track of how’s the preparation for the trip going.
PackPoint app shows you what to bring along with you, considering
▪️ the length of the trip,
▪️ the weather in place you wanna visit,
▪️ and any activities you’re planning along the way.
Sharing is caring
The amazing thing about PackPoint is that you can easily share packing checklists you created with your friends & fellow travelers. So all you need to do is install the mobile app, type in the city you’re visiting and add your travel details.
The list builder will also help you organize your laundry, as it shows clothes you can still wear, and what should be washed. Then, you can plan your outfit for every day and always look astonishing.
So stop waiting until the day before your trip – or the hours before you have to leave for the airport – and start packing now!
The app is free but if you decide to got for a premium version for just 3 bucks – there’s a benefit to it. You can then integrate it with TripIt, and your packing lists will be automatically created.
➡ Tips from Airwander
#5 Optimize your travel budget with TravelSpend 💰
When it comes to saving money, there’s a wide range of mobile apps that’ll be useful. TravelSpend is one of the best to plan your trip budget and add travel expenses on the go. So let’s take a closer look at TravelSpend features.
➙ The app works offline, so you can track your expenses at any time.
➙ You can set a specific budget for each trip, and the app will help you stick to it.
To decide on a trip budget, check out Airwander’s guide Travel Planning: What’s with the budget? in one of our articles focused on expert travel.
➡ Tips from Airwander
➙ Expenses are labelled and grouped into categories, so you can see in real time what part of your trip may need cost optimization.
➙ Gain unique insights. You can access the statistics of your trip expenses as the trip starts. Also, there’s a map with the exact locations of all places where you spent money. Now you’ll always be able to come back to your favorite spots or share them with friends. However, if you are a pro in money managing, there’s a pro version – all your expense-related data can be exported in CSV files.
And a few more amazing features…
➙ TravelSpend offers different currencies, so forget the worries about the exchange rates. Just type in the amount you’ve spent in local money, and you’ll see how much it is in your home currency.
➙ Another great feature of this mobile app is inviting multiple users to create a shared travel budget. What’s even more incredible is that you can split bills and keep track of who owes whom without any mental efforts.
So if you want to control your expenses (and you definitely do:), TravelSpend is one of the best ways to make it true.
#4 Find a place to stay & make new friends with Couchsurfing or Airbnb mobile apps 🛏️
We already described the specifics of choosing the right accommodation for your trip – check out the section “Travel Planning: Where to stay?” It largely depends on what type of experience you prefer, how you like to socialize and how much you’re willing to spend.
▪️ Be it Couchsurfing (meet your host & find your couch),
▪️ Airbnb (book your next getaway in a local way),
▪️ Hostelworld.com (save your money),
▪️ Booking.com (burn your money),
▪️ or any other accommodation platform, there’s a dedicated mobile app for each of them.
Surely, you can just use the website, but a mobile app usually has a more friendly interface and often works offline.
The common sense says to book in advance, which is true for almost all the mobile apps. However, with Couchsurfing contact your potential host right before your arrival (1-2 days ahead). Convince them that you have nowhere to stay, and you’ll have your couch. My Couchsurfing host once said that’s the exact and only reason he agreed to share his apartment with us. And yet we had an amazing time, so a bit of stress before the unknown was totally worth it 🙂.
➡ Tips from Airwander
#3 Save food & save the planet with Too Good To Go 🥙
You must’ve already discovered that travel is a great way to heal your soul. But did you know that it works even better when you travel sustainably? Sustainable travel is a complex approach, but here’s an easy way to do some baby steps. Check out Too Good To Go – one of the mobile apps which helps you fight global food waste locally. It’s as easy as rolling off a log & as effective as hell!
1️⃣ Download TGTG app.
2️⃣ Browse restaurants & stores in the closest vicinity and reserve your Magic Bag.
3️⃣ Pick up your food at the chosen place at a certain time.
How do mobile apps fighting food waste work?
Every day in every store and restaurant there’s a surplus of food. According to the data provided by Too Good To Go, ⅓ of all food in the world is getting wasted. Basically almost all of these products and dishes are perfectly edible. What’s more, the majority is in fact delicious!
However, the staff has no other legal option than to throw it all out unless they cooperate with local businesses or have a special policy of dealing with food surplus. So what TGTG does is connecting local businesses with customers who don’t mind saving food, money and planet through a mobile app 🌎
Sounds incredible, right? You better join in. The app is available in 15 countries and recently entered the U.S. market. If you’re traveling to a country where it’s not yet available – don’t give up and look up alternative mobile apps. The fight against food waste has inspired entrepreneurs worldwide.
#2 Communicate beyond boundaries with Google Translate 🌐
If you travel internationally, there is a big chance that you’ll come across a foreign language in your destination country. And while English is indeed the 3rd most spoken language in the world, many people don’t use it on a daily basis. But it’s not a problem in the society replete with mobile apps.
With a personal translator in your pocket, you can find a common ground with basically anyone, no matter what language they speak. What’s more, it is immensely useful in emergencies, when you don’t have an inkling what’s going on.
Useful features
With Google Translate you can do lots of things.
✔️ Type in text in any language and get it translated to your native language.
✔️ Take or import photos of any piece of text, and the app will translate it for you.
✔️ Use instant camera translation by just pointing your camera at a text or an unintelligible sign on the street.
✔️ Just speak up, and a synchronous translation will appear on your screen.
✔️ Conduct a real-time conversation with a person speaking a foreign language by taking turns in a conversation. With Google Translate as a third party, obviously 🙃.
✔️ Download language packs and use a translator at any time throughout your trip.
#1 Navigate like a pro with Maps.me 🧭
Key features
No matter how you decide to navigate a new country, you’ll have to consult a map at some point. There’s no doubt that we associate paper maps associate with a real adventure, but time calls for new technologies and modern solutions. Maps.me is an essential tool for
▪️ visiting a city,
▪️ mapping must-see locations,
▪️ getting directions for walking, riding a bike, using public transport & driving,
▪️ finding public services,
▪️ discovering great places to eat, Wi-Fi spots, ATMs and much more, even booking accommodation is integrated with the app.
Offline maps in mobile apps
Maps.me can offer something most other mobile apps related to maps can’t. It lets you view your saved maps offline, which is extremely important when you’re in the middle of nowhere. Or when roaming data tariffs cost a fortune.
Mobile apps as travel guides? Why not!
What’s more, Maps.me helps you explore a city by yourself with amazing travel guides – descriptions & photos of places included. There are actual catalogs with plenty of ideas about where to go and how to spend time.
No matter where you go and how long your trip is going to last, try and make the most out of it. To sum up, mobile apps are a smart and easy way to ensure nothing gets past you.