Smartphones are steadily making other devices – and even physical media – obsolete. Your phone is now your camera, newspaper, library, map, entertainment hub, shopping portal and more. This versatility becomes even more important when you travel.
Forget bulky travel guides and single-purpose gadgets, your phone can streamline your packing. Sure, it can’t replace your wardrobe (yet), but it can replace many other items you’d lug around the world one day. And it’s a boon to your planning, too.
At least it is as you have the right apps. Here are our top picks to get you started.
Go directly to the best apps for:
Planning your trip
Skyscanner
You may feel loyal to an airline, but many people feel more loyal to their bank account. Skyscanner makes it easy to research air travel options, refine your plans using a variety of filters, and potentially discover routes and bargains you might never have considered otherwise.
Free; Android, iOS
Todoist
When you’re thousands of miles away from home, it’s not ideal to suddenly realize you forgot an essential item or left a task unfinished at home. Todoist lets you create reusable lists, with the added benefit of being cross-platform and even allowing you to delegate tasks to other people in your group.
Free; Android, iOS
Booking.com
This one uses the tagline “hotels and more” on the Google Play store, but it’s the “hotels” feature we’re here for. With this app, you can browse all sorts of places to stay while traveling—from fancy hotels to quirky apartments—and dig into the finer details to see if your budget can handle it.
Free; Android, iOS
DB Navigator
Planning train travel, both at home and abroad, can be a nightmare. Google Maps does a decent job of providing detail, but if you’re in Europe, DB Navigator is a better choice for planning trips – although you’ll need to visit the individual operators’ websites to buy your tickets. Heading to the United States? Try Wanderu.
Free; Android, iOS
Atlas Obscura
There are plenty of apps that can tell you what’s popular in your destination. But Atlas Obscura instead points you to curiosities off the beaten track. More than 20,000 unexpected places are included in the app. You can plan where to go, keep track of where you’ve been, and even contribute to a new place when you make a discovery of your own.
Free; Android, iOS
Back to index
Before your flight
Flight aware
Flight tracking apps can be overloaded with features for enthusiasts. But when you’re traveling, you just want to know when your plane is leaving—and where it is. FlightAware gets you to such details quickly, and conveniently has a button labeled with what’s on the minds of many travelers: Where’s my plane?
Free + IAP; Android, iOS
Readable
Magazines are great, until you have to stuff a dozen of them into your in-flight bag and lug them around. For the price of a few issues, Readly gives you instant access to over 7,000 of the stuff – and tons of back issues. You can even share your subscription with up to five friends.
£12.99 per month / Android, iOS
White noise+
If you find flying stressful and overwhelming, this app lets you filter out the noise with customizable ambient soundscapes that you arrange on a grid-based mini mixer. On Android? White Noise (99p) does a similar job, though it’s nowhere near as fancy.
Free or £11.99; iOS
Back to index
Money and supplies
NordVPN
VPNs overdo their hand on security, but they’re worth using to encrypt data on public Wi-Fi. They can also spoof your location to access geo-blocked services or go shopping. NordVPN is my favorite – it’s reliable, fast, and packed with features. If you sign up, do so via the website, which offers far better details than anything you’ll get in the app. Free; Android, iOS
Find out how to save money on holidays by using a VPN in our guide.
Back to index
Currency
There are so many currency apps out there but this one makes my list because of its no-nonsense approach: add currency, pick one and enter a value, instant conversions. Pay and you get historical charts and real-time rates, but unless something bad happens to the economy where you’re staying, the one hour ‘delay’ of rates should be fine while on vacation.
Free; Android, iOS
Expense tracker
There are more advanced budgeting apps out there, but who wants a hassle on vacation? This app is designed to help you define a budget, quickly log expenses, and make sure the final sum doesn’t seem like it’s at much bigger than the previous one, and continue your vacation.
Free or £2.99; Android, iOS
Monzo
Whether you’re already putting your savings in a Monzo account or not, it’s not a bad idea to get one (and the app) if you’re travelling with friends. Monzo promises that overseas transactions are fee-free, and the app lets you split bills with a few taps. It even gives you a spending report once your trip is over.
Free; Android, iOS
Find out how to find the best debit and credit cards for travel in our guide here.
Back to index
Activities and excursions
Morgen.io
Most weather apps provide data without context. This one is different. For each saved location, you can select activities you want to participate in. It then tells you when the next time is a good time to play golf, eat outside, or go for a quick run.
Free; Android, iOS
Google translate
If you don’t speak the local language, Google Translate has you covered. You can download languages for offline use, so translations—and even human conversations—can still flow without internet access. And you can even point your camera at menus and signs, and the app will attempt to decipher them on the spot.
Free / Android, iOS
Google Maps
Chances are, you already have it on your phone. But you might not realize how useful Google Maps is when you’re traveling. You can save huge chunks of maps offline, and the turn-by-turn directions will still work. And when you’re back online, you can quickly find out what’s local—and even how busy interesting places are at any given time.
Free; Android, iOS
AllTrails
Google Maps is great for navigating a city, but not so much for the great outdoors. If you’re up for a hike, AllTrails offers over 400,000 trails to explore, each with its own distance, time, and elevation. Subscribe and you can download maps for offline use and, helpfully, get a heads-up if you take a wrong turn.
Free + IAP; Android, iOS
Ski tracks
If your idyllic getaway involves skiing or snowboarding, this app will ensure your time isn’t wasted and you can track your progress on the slopes. Turn it on as you start your day and it’ll suck up data that you can review later to see how you did and compare with friends – including geolocated snaps for those all-important selfies in the snow.
€1.89; Android • €1.99; iOS
Tides near me
Whether you are planning a trip to an island that is temporarily connected to the mainland during low tide or you want to show off your surfing skills, you need to know the upcoming tides. This app is a simple but effective way to explore the tides nearby and those important times for the current day or week.
Free; Android, iOS
Back to index
Coming home
Snapseed
Your phone takes great photos. But to do more with them, grab Snapseed. Google’s image editor is packed with easy-to-use filters and tools, including perspective correction and text overlays. Best of all, the edits are nondestructive, so you can think again when you turn every vacation photo into a grainy black-and-white and realize it’s not quite right.
Free; Android, iOS
Time shift Jetlag
Traveling halfway around the world for the vacation of a lifetime? Exciting! Except when you get home and jet lag turns you into a zombie for a week. This app intelligently helps you adjust your sleep/wake cycle in the days leading up to your trip, so you have a good chance of staying awake at the office.
Free + IAP; Android, iOS
Back to index
