10 Essential Travel Apps Every Traveler Needs
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In today’s modern era, where people are increasingly getting connected, it isn’t easy to find someone embarking on a trip without the assistance of any technology. The tech industry is booming with numerous mobile apps designed to help travelers with navigation to checklist verification. In fact, 55% of travelers are using apps when traveling.
This article is centered on helping you narrow down to the best apps you need for your travels. Some of these are designed to help with communication and even help organize your itinerary while on the trip.
Here is a list of the top 10 best travel apps to help you plan your next trip:
Get the best deals with SkyScanner
Skyscanner is a great app for finding the best deals on flights, hotels and rental cars. It searches across dozens of airlines to find the cheapest dates possible.
The new versions of Skyscanner let you discover countries without entry restrictions or quarantine regulations so you can have an easier time traveling internationally. It also offers flexible booking options to help users adapt their plans as they change during trips. The user-friendly interface has helpful features such as alerts when prices change based on destination or time of day.
Plan your vacation with Wanderlog
This is one of the best options for finding an app to help plan your future vacations. Wanderlog is designed to calculate the travel times, help you find suitable locations, and plan your itinerary for the trip. The best part about it is that you can find all your arrangements offline; you don’t have to be online to use it. You can also share your travel arrangements with others, making it an ideal choice for group trips. It allows you to discuss with your company where to go before making any bookings.
Counting the days to your next trip: Vacation Countdown App
You probably have been planning your vacation for a long time, and it’s best to get prepared when the time comes. With Vacation Countdown, you can get an exact countdown to the day your journey begins. All you have to do is key in the starting date and time of the trip, not forgetting your destination. Some of the amazing features that come with the app include:
- Multiple countdowns- this countdown app allows you to set countdowns for different trips.
- Custom background theme- this feature allows you to select your favorite theme or image for the background.
- Vacation packing checklist- this feature allows you to track all the items you need to pack for the trip.
- Vacation games. Some trips can be long and tiresome. You can keep yourself busy and entertained with fun and educational games such as Flags of the World and Geography and Trivia.
Vacation countdown is probably the best countdown app offering multiple features that span beyond tracking the days, minutes and hours before your trip.
Get the best hotel deals with HotelTonight
The HotelTonight app is one of the most popular travel apps in the world. It sells unsold hotel rooms at a discount and has categories like “Basic,” “Hip,” and “Luxe.” With over 3 billion views, it’s also one of the top travel deal apps in 2021.
HotelTonight offers a unique way to book last-minute hotel rooms in the United States and Canada. This app provides a large variety of hotels with their best rates available for booking at any time during the year. This app has been known to offer discounts on rooms that haven’t sold out, making it an important tool for travelers who need accommodations but don’t want them booked months ahead of time.
Find connecting journeys with Omio
This is one of the best apps for finding connecting journeys. Using Omio, you can book ferries, flights, trains, and buses from the comfort of your home using your smartphone. With the recent pandemic plaguing travel arrangements, Omio has added a Covid-19 travel disruption information feature. With this feature, you can keep real-time track of the Covid-19 status of your destination, including the rules and restrictions.
Stay organized with TripIt
TripIt is an app that helps you stay organized with all your travel plans. It keeps your itineraries and documents organized in one place, and you can set reservations to be automatically added to TripIt. All you need to do is send your flight, restaurant, hotel, or car rental confirmation details to plans@triplt.com. Once all the information is confirmed, Triplt will automatically send all data regarding your travel to your master itinerary on your mobile phone. This way, you can review all your plans and itinerary at once.
You can also use it to view travel confirmations, flight itineraries, tickets, hotel and Airbnb booking info, rental car reservations, ferry tickets and driving directions without ever leaving the app.
If you chose to subscribe to the Pro version, the company could help you find alternative means of transport, accommodation, and even eatery when your previous booking is canceled. This version also sends automatic alerts to your mobile phone on canceled flights, delays, and any other important information. This is arguably the best travel app for people who frequently travel and need to organize their itinerary beforehand.
Keep Track of your budget with Trail Wallet
Travelling can be very expensive, especially if you don’t keep track of your expenditure. This is one of the best budgeting apps you need for your travels. Trail Wallet is a great expense tracker app that allows you to keep track of your expenditure while traveling and helps international travelers calculate correct and updated currency conversions. With this app, you don’t have to worry about your finances; use this chance to concentrate on what your trip is all about.
One of the key selling points for Trail Wallet is the clear, simple, and easy-t-use interface. The app allows you to organize your finances by the trip, month, or daily, giving you a chance to add other expenses as time goes by. All you have to do is add the value on your bill or receipt using Quick Add.
Some of the key features include:
• A daily budget icon that tells you how much you are left with based on your previous expenditure.
• A comprehensive summary screen that highlights all the data on your budget
• An Interactive bar chart that gives you a summary of your last 5-day expenditure.
• Custom trail wallet that features fun characters and themes.
• Daily automatic backup of your data
• Updated current exchange rates.
Unfortunately this travel budgeting app is only available for iOS, not for Android. An alternative that is available in the AppStore and Google Play Store is TravelSpend.
Break down language barriers with Google Translate
This is arguably the best travel app for languages. Google translate can come in handy when you have to travel to non-English speaking destinations. Google translate is equipped with hundreds of languages that ease your travels. Suppose you visit an area with a poor internet connection; it’s best to download the needed language before starting your journey. This way, you can access the languages offline.
Get around safely with Uber
Uber is the global king of ridesharing apps. Uber has currently extended its services to some of the major cities around the world. This means you don’t have to worry about hailing a taxi when visiting a new destination.
It’s a travel app that can be particularly handy when you’re abroad as it allows you to track your car’s location before leaving a place and then request a ride from your phone. It provides both locals and visitors a reliable and affordable way of getting from one point to another. Using Uber for your travels is also one of the best ways to track your travel budget while minimizing your expenditure. You don’t have to worry about being taken advantage of by local taxi drivers through fixed taxi fares.
Safe Time at the airport with MyTSA
MyTSA, a U.S. government-sponsored app, demystifies all the rules for air travel and makes your trip less confusing and more manageable. This app is available for both iOS and Android users to use during their travels, allowing them to check for delays or historical busyness of airport security lines at a glance.
This free app provides information about TSA regulations on carry-on bags, checkpoint procedures, boarding process changes/tickets vs going through checkpoints with no tickets while you’re in the airport, and much more.
Stare downs are possible delays by security agents who are trying to do their jobs. Stare downs, which would otherwise be non-existent due to the TSA app, provide information about delays and historical busyness of certain airports.
– Check for delays and an airport’s historical busyness is possible with this app as well.
It’s not easy to figure out the best travel apps for you, but with these 10 essentials in your arsenal of digital tools, any traveler can have a better experience. Figure out what each app does and how it might help you before downloading so that you know which ones are worth spending time on.