Which apps do you use on your phone or tablet when you travel? In this article an overview of applications that can make your journey just that little bit easier. Applications that are standard on your phone are not mentioned here, such as Google Maps or Facebook.
Below we have defined a number of categories.
Accommodations
It is possible that you have already booked all the accommodations for your trip. Chances are you haven’t already. Apps that are useful when booking accommodations are Booking.com, Hostelworld, Airbnb and Hotels.com. Many accommodations are on the different apps, with different prices. It is therefore worth checking out the various apps when booking.
Entertainment
Traveling often means many hours in a plane, train or bus. To pass the time, you can download Spotify or Netflix. You can create a free account at Spotify, but you can only listen to music with an internet connection. To download songs and listen to music offline, you need the paid Spotify account. With Netflix you always need a (shared) paid account.
Financial
Financial acumen is a must when traveling. You probably have a budget available for your trip and you want to know if you are on track. Can you still do that fun activity or do you have to save money? Travel Spend is a practical app to monitor your budget. In this app you enter your budget and indicate how long you are traveling. The app calculates for you how much you can spend on average per day. Of course, one day you spend more and the next day less, the app neatly shows what you have spent on average per day.
In addition, it is – of course – good to download the app from your bank and to arrange your banking affairs in this way. Don’t forget to take the Rabobank reader with you if you have a bank account at Rabobank!
A third handy app is Currency. With this app you can easily view the exchange rate between the different currencies. That saves you if you are at a border crossing and you just don’t have that one currency at your disposal and you change money at the border. You won’t use this app often, but better shy than shy.
Photo & Video
Travel means photography. Every adventure you embark on must of course be filmed. Don’t think about losing all your photos later because you didn’t save them properly. Saving photos and videos is easy in Google Photo or Dropbox. Then get a paid account, which gives you more storage space. With the current photo cameras you can often save the photos and videos directly on your phone or tablet, which you can then synchronize with Google Photo or Dropbox. This way you build in more security to save your memories.
Medical
There is nothing more annoying than getting sick abroad. The quality of medical care is often less than you are used to. With the app Doctor on Demand you can request a consultation for medical cases. Employees are available on the app (at set times) and you can request a meeting with them.
Navigation
You know that feeling? You are in a big city and you really have no idea where to go. Before the smartphone became popular, this happened to us regularly. Nowadays you have – in addition to Google Maps – apps that can help you with this. A good app for this is, for example, Maps.Me. Where Google Maps in offline mode only indicates the route by car, Maps.Me also indicates the route if you want to walk.
Do you like to hike? All trails gives you an overview of all kinds of (walking) routes in the area. The paid version is €30 per year and gives you the option to download maps and give you directions during the route.
And how exactly do you get anywhere? Rome2Rio is a handy app for that. You simply enter your location and desired destination and the app shows you how to get here. One downside: we are disappointed how up-to-date this app is.
Polarsteps is an emerging app that accurately tracks your location. Nice for the home front, because this way they can keep an eye on your adventures. With this app you can create steps, where you tell about your adventures and share photos and videos.
Government
For travelers from the US: The government makes it easy for you to stay up to date when you are travelling. An useful app from the government Smart Traveler. The Travel app provides you with information about your country of destination and, for example, gives you insight into the Covid-19 situation in the country.
Transportation
Taking a taxi is part of getting from A to B and taxi drivers are often good at charging high prices because they see that you are a foreigner. If you like to negotiate it can be a fun game, if you are less of this, apps like Uber, Beat, Picap and Didi are good apps. It can be useful to have several of these taxi apps on your phone because it can differ per country which service works and what the prices are for the services. The nice thing about the Picap app is that you can have a motorcycle come, instead of a car.
Good to know with these apps is that the service may work, but is actually prohibited in the country where you are. It is therefore possible that you are dropped off at a different place, close to your destination, because the driver is afraid of encountering a police officer.
Hopefully this will help you prepare for your trip. Do you have additions or comments? Feel free to let us know in the comments.