We are all pretty much glued to our phones, most of us would be lost without it (literally), and it’s actually scary! (I’m low-key scared of technology now thanks to Black Mirror!) There’s literally an app for everything- an app to help you sleep, drink more water, track your girlfriend’s menstrual cycle (serious eye roll!), for contraception (bruh, I know right!) and so on.
Since we have all these apps and always need our phones, how about we make the phones work for us! There are so many apps available geared towards travel and helping you travel better. I’ve downloaded a number (and deleted majority of them too). These are 9 must-have travel apps that I have and some that I’ve found recently, all free (all available on iOS and Android), that you should have going forward to help from when you start planning your trip to when you reach your destination.
Getting Around
1.) CityMapper
My favourite app for getting around, both home and away. CityMapper is super easy to use, effective and especially for using public transport, its journey planner is far more detailed than Google maps in my opinion. It gives you real-time departures and disruption alerts, as well as all the options to get around a city like cycle routes, Uber, etc. It is available in about 40 cities worldwide and the number keeps growing so they could be in a city near you soon. If you take nothing else from this list, definitely download this! Trust me, you won’t regret it!
2. Maps.me
Say goodbye to being lost and not being able to turn on your mobile data for fear of a heart attack when those phone roaming charges come through. MAPS.me allows you do what most other map apps don’t; it allows you use the map offline! All you need to do is download the maps you need before your go and you’re free to explore without getting lost or having to pay a fortune.
According to their website, it is available in every country, including islands so check before you go!
Safety
3. BSafe
When you’re travelling, the only person you can depend on for your safety is yourself. bSafe is a great app to help keep you safe while you’re away on your adventure. It lets your designated contacts (guardians) know that you’ve arrived at your destination and Follow Me, which is a live GPS option, allows your designated contacts follow your route real time, like a virtual walk home!
Use ‘Fake call’ to program the app to make your phone ring when you want it to. This would even come in handy at home when you want to escape a horrible date and don’t know how to!
bSafe has an audible alarm at the press of a button for when you’re in danger. It alerts your guardians instantly about your exact location and starts recording audio and video that can be sent to them, so they can contact the emergency services on your behalf. Another helpful feature, bSafe offers directions to nearest emergency services like police station and hospitals. It’s a must-have.
Organisation
4. Pack point
Ever settled into your flight to your next destination and your heart drops to your bum because you realise you’ve forgotten to pack something? Here’s where Packpoint comes in!
You tell it when and where you’re going and what activities you plan on doing and it generates a list of things to pack tailored to that! You can edit the list to suit you even better and check them off as they’re packed!
I love a good list and especially when I’m travelling, so I personally think this is a great app!
Money
Money 5. Trail Wallet
It’s so easy to overspend on holiday (I’ve been guilty of this a number of times) and keeping on top of how much you spend on holiday can be long! Trail Wallet deals with this issue in s great way! It helps you track your travel budget so you stay on top of your spending and curb when you need to. You enter how much you want to spend per day in your home currency and you can enter your expenses in your destination currency and it does the conversion for you! Such a breeze!
6. Splittr
Group holidays can get complicated when it comes to splitting costs and we all know money and friends don’t always mix, especially on holiday. Splittr that allows you to easily split costs between your g
roup. You simply add expenses to the app as you go and Splittr divides the bill for all parties involved.
So if you’re going on a girls trip or party holiday with your guys, you no longer need to squabble over who paid for what.
Connection & Keeping in touch
7. Wiffinity
Ofcourse holidays can be a time to unplug and leave social media behind and be at one with yourself. But let’s be honest, most of us couldn’t survive without Wi-Fi for too long and roaming can cost an arm and a leg (and a kidney too). Wiffinity solves this problem for the free! It helps keep you connected with about 600,000 hotspots across the world and a WiFi map so you can see where hotspots are available.
8. Rebtel
Okay so we all have WhatsApp for making calls on holiday but what if you need to contact someone within the country and they don’t have WhatsApp? Or Wi-Fi is too weak to make any calls? Or you don’t want to be messing around with a sim for 2 days or getting phone cards? That’s where Rebtel comes in. It ‘hijacks’ local phone lines and you’re able to get the best calling rates available (and they keep reducing the prices!). It also offers “Rebel calling”, which means you can call friends or family for free if they have the app. It’s my new go to app for international calling.
Activities
9. Around me
Need to find the nearest bar, supermarket, ATM machine? AroundMe uses your GPS to identify your position and helps you find a range of amenities around you. It’s super helpful, fast and accurate. I even use it when I’m out and about in my home city of Manchester, it’s really helpful! It presents the information on a map or as a listing. I prefer using the map option so I can visually see the proximity. You also get direction to what you’re looking for from where you are.
I hope this has been helpful for you guys and you make use of the amazing apps on this list.
If you have any more that I don’t know about or aren’t on this list, please share in the comments!
Ttyl,
