Planning a trip can be a pain. But with smartphones, you have all the necessary tools to make your travels a breeze. Keep stress to a bare minimum with our pick of the most useful apps for IOS and Android phones.
1. Kayak
Searching for flights, your all encompassing diary and important travel details at a quick glance. Like Skyscanner, Kayak searches across various travel sites for rental cars, hotels, and flights. Kayak often has exclusive deals you won’t find on other sites, you can set price alerts and use Price Forecast to see whether you should buy now or wait. Add in your hotel confirmation number, gate number, gate number, and any other details, and you will need nothing else but your passport.
2. Netflix
My must-have! Now that Netflix allows you to download your shows and movies for offline viewing, it is the ideal companion to take on long journeys. If you’ve got hours to kill waiting in departure, or even if you’d rather just watch your movie in-flight without having it interrupted by disrupting announcements from the flight crew, have it on your phone or tablet! Just remember to put it into airplane mode when flying, and get those movies downloaded at home over Wi-Fi in advance.
3. App in the Air
App in the Air might have a gimmicky name, but there’s a reason this app is an Editor’s Choice on the App Store. App in the Air 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. On top of all of that, you can still receive updates offline, so you’ll incur no roaming charges if using the app abroad.
4. XE Currency
With over 55 million downloads, XE Currency is the most popular currency exchange rate app on the market. It gives accurate conversion rates for every currency you can think of, updated every minute and stored offline so that even if you lose internet connection, you can still use the app.
5. Cleartrip
Cleartrip is useful for booking flights, hotels and trains. Cleartrip was originally founded in India, and while its success means that it now has well over 10 million users worldwide, there are still regions it doesn’t support, so make sure to check to make sure you’re in a supported area. Now, with the capability for securely storing card information, you can do 1-click purchases of plane tickets, meaning you can choose between deals and purchase tickets – all within 60 seconds. Cleartrip can search for the best deals on hotel rooms in over 15,000 cities worldwide, as well.
6. Skyscanner
Flights, hotels, rental cars — this is all under one app. It searches for the most affordable and best options via its travel partners. Like with Google flights and Kayak, you can see the cheapest dates to fly through a month view calendar, and you can also get alerts when prices change. If you’re not sure where exactly you want to go, go to th explore category and see “Top Deals” from your nearest airport, as well as a curated list of destinations at affordable prices
7. Citymapper
Citymapper is essential if you want to be able to move around like a local in any major global City and its list of countries is growing rapidly. This map app plans routes 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. Very handy when you’re riding for the first time in a new country.
8. iTranslate
Sometimes heading to a country where they speak another language makes you wish for the Babel Fish from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (but ‘The Pilot’ earphones are available on preorder – a little mechanical device that you pop into your ear that instantly translates any language). 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! What’s even better is that the most commonly used languages have a downloadable pack so you can use them offline.
9. Splittr
Splittr allows you to easily split costs between a group, meaning if you are travelling with a group of people, you no longer need to squabble over who paid for what. You simply add expenses to the app as you go, then at the end of the holiday Splittr divides the bill and sends a PDF to all parties involved.
10. HotelTonight
Airbnb fall through? Flight get delayed at your layover? You never know what will happen with your booking, and Hotel Tonight is a reliable service that thrives on last minute deals. You also get 24/7 customer service from the Hotel Tonight team, in case something goes awry.
11. Packpoint
PackPoint helps you pack. You put in where you’re going, when you’re going, and what you plan to do there and PackPoint suggests a list of things to pack. You can add or remove things from the list, then tick them off once they are packed. It works with TripIt too, so you can get suggestions based on your travel itinerary automatically migrated from that app. Never have that ‘Did I pack my…’ feeling again.
12. Tripit
TripIt is a travel itinerary app that makes it easy to see your whole trip in one place. You simply forward all of your booking emails to TripIt and the app collates all of your information. The information is available offline so you don’t have to worry about roaming charges. What’s more, TripIt works with App in the Air and PackPoint so you can get flight notifications and packing advice based on your itinerary.
Any Questions or Tips to add?