We all have seem to have a phone with us now when we travel, but do we realise just how helpful it can be!! From booking flights, to free calls home, finding your way to your accommodation and communicating with locals…or even just keeping you entertained on long journeys! There are a whole host of apps out there designed for the traveller, here are the ones we use and recommend on our best phone apps for travel list!
Best phone apps for travel:
Navigation:
Maps.me
Instead of using Google maps we use something called maps.me. You download the main app and then download the maps for each country when you have WIFI. This app then allows you to use it completely offline when you are out and about and is one of our most used apps and one of the best phone apps for travel out there. It has really saved us quite a few times when we have had no idea where we were or if we are trying to find somewhere. It is even good for hiking routes too an includes not only roads but tiny dirt tracks, the amount of detail it knows it pretty crazy! You can set routes to follow and even look up local places to eat, sights and shops!
Price: FREE
Available offline: YES
Check it out here: www.maps.me
Nav mii
Another navigational system but one which really helped us out when we drove around Switzerland and Liechtenstein last year. Nav Mii is a free Sat Nav which can be downloaded for each country you visit and used when you don’t have an internet connection. It is probably more suited towards driving than on foot travel as it provides information such as speed limit/ traffic cameras etc.
Price: FREE
Communication:
Google translate
Communication when you are away can be difficult and no matter how hard you try to learn a few new phrases we can all get stuck. Google translate makes it easy to write something down and translate it to pretty much any language in the world making it one of the best phone apps for travel! You can even use the camera to translate words or upload them onto your screen, this was particularly helpful in Russia where the alphabet is different, you can also use the microphone too and have the phone speak aloud for you!
You can use it offline too by downloading language pack. See how here:
Cnet: Google Translate Offline
Price: FREE
Available offline: YES
Duolingo
Duolingo makes learning a new language fun, easy and free! This is a great app for those who want to take communication a little further and learn a little more of the language we find ourselves in. It is really easy to use and really helps you engage with locals.
Price: FREE
Available offline: YES
Watsapp
Watsapp has been one of the most valuable tools for us whilst travelling. Firstly it helps us keep in contact with our friends and family back home, we video and voice call at least once a week and don’t pay a penny for it! It’s as simple as downloading the app and using existing contacts. Changing sims doesn’t matter either you can still opt to use your old phone number too. It has also been a great way to keep in contact with people we have met on the road too across many countries where numbers change often! Watsapp is a must have and one of the best phone apps for travel for us.
Price: FREE
Available offline: NO – Uses 3G or WIFI
Money
XE currency
Moving from country to country and using all sorts of different currencies can be confusing and end up costing you money! It is wise to keep track of how much you are paying, how much the conversion rate is and how the rate is changing too.
Price: FREE
Available offline: YES
Expensify
This app allows you to keep track of all of your expenses on one app. You can scan receipts, input manually and create reports. If you are travelling long term or are on a tight budget this app allows you to keep track of where and what you spend your money on!
Price: FREE/ fee paying options as well
Available offline: YES
Photos/ Documenting your trip
Instagram is not only great for sharing your memories with your friends and family but its a great way to discover new places to see and visit through hashtags and location tags. It’s also yet another way to keep in contact with people from home or those you meet on the road. The stories area is great to see where people are exploring in real time and in their day to day adventures!
Price: FREE
Available offline: Requires internet
Backing up
Flickr
Flickr is a great way to back up all your photos and one of the most important and best phone apps for travel. You have to manually upload them and it does sometimes take a little while, but it is worth it as they are uploaded full size. Flickr is also free for a huge 1tb of memory and can be accessed anywhere you have an internet connection and any photo re-downloaded. For photographers this is a great redundancy for your back ups to make sure your photos are safe.
Price: FREE for 1tb
Available offline: Requires internet to back up
Dropbox
Dropbox is our go-to backup for our files on our laptop. It not only backs up all your photos and memories but any type of file that is on your computer. It is all available from their desktop site too and on the mobile app which makes it easy to access files on the go too. It’s one of the most well known, well trusted and simplest ways to back your files up and one of the best phone apps for travel.
Price: Monthly subscription needed per size of backup
Available offline: Requires internet to back up
Google Photos
If you have icloud this might seem unnecessary but it’s always good to have redundancy especially if it is free. Google photos is an app that backs up your photos on your phone and also helps you organise and search through them. You can search via location or even faces! Another good feature is that you can upload photos from your laptop too so you can back up photos taken on your cameras not just your phone. Again you can login from anywhere and download your photos to a laptop or other phone.
Price: FREE (Subscription available for more memory but we’ve not reached that yet!)
Available offline: Requires internet to back up
iCloud
Many people use their phones as their main way to take photos and capture priceless memories alongside collecting contact information from all the people you meet. I also use the notes function to plan many of our trips, write down ideas and just generally make notes of things that we’ve done or notes for the blog. Even if you only use your phone casually then you still probably have your life organised on their. So when Shorty took a swim in the sea with his phone it was a disaster! No worries though, after we got him a new and dry phone he could just log in to his Icloud and download basically his old phone again, all the settings, photos, apps etc re downloaded back! You can also login on your laptop and download your photos, videos, contacts etc. This is a must on our best phone apps for travel list!
Price: A subscription costs us 79p a month for 50gb
Available offline: Works best with WIFI to stay up to date but photos will upload over data. Check your settings and try and have your phone connected to WIFI and plugging into power over night.
Entertainment
Been
This is a fun little app that allows you to fill in the spaces on a world map of all the places you have been and then share it with your friends on social media! A nice little tool for bragging about all the amazing places you have visited!
Price: FREE
Available offline: YES
iBooks
Carrying around heavy books in your backpack is so 5 years ago!! Love to read but don’t have to space or shoulders to carry around a library with you, have an iPhone and don’t want to shell out on a Kindle too. iBooks allows you to download and read all your favourite books on your phone. Most you do have to pay for but there are some free books out there too. For those long flight and bus rides this is one of the best phone apps for travel.
Price: FREE/ Fee to download some books
Available offline: YES
Booking/ Organisation/ planning
Cambassy
This is a great app for seeing a destination through the eyes of locals. When we travel we love to get below the surface of a place and really get to know it properly. Sometimes its not the easiest to do that, especially when you’re in a new place every few weeks or don’t have your next destination planned too far ahead. The name comes from a play on the words Camera & Embassy, and users who represent their country are called Cambassadors. A new generation of social networking you can use it to show visitors YOUR city through YOUR eyes. Or you can search out a new city and see what both locals and travellers alike have discovered or even see what visitors have made of your own city. Cambassy is all about perspectives and seeing somewhere through new eyes. Discover unique places in far off destinations or see your own backyard through the eyes of a tourist!
Price: FREE
Available on:
itunes: www.itunes.apple.com/us/app/cambassy/
Android: www.play.google.com/store/apps/
Read more here: www.cambassy.com
Pack point
Going to New York in March, Switzerland in July, Russia in May!! Not sure what to pack? Well pack point allows you to select where, when and what and from that it will let you know the perfect list based on weather, location and activities. You then swipe them off one by one as you pack them! It lets you know what are essentials and how many of each to pack too, you can also add your own custom items!
Price: FREE
Available offline: YES
Kayak
As frequent travellers this app is a time and money saver. I am sure many of you are familiar with the website Kayak, well their App is even more convenient on the move. Compare flight prices, accommodation, track flights, view price history and manage your itinerary!
Price: FREE
Available offline: Some sections
Sky Scanner
Skyscanner is one of our number 1 sites to buy and find flights from and their app is just as useful. It has a wide variety of flight providers and the ability to see which flights are the cheapest on any given day or month.
Price: FREE
Available offline: NO
Tripadvisor
Tripadvisor is again such a priceless tool for planning and booking trips and by far one of the best phone apps for travel. Not only can you use it to research and book hotels, tours and places to eat but you can also find some great guides to cities too.
Price: FREE
Available offline: NO
Other:
Express VPN
Certain countries block many websites such as facebook, YouTube, Google and a host more. To get around this you need to get up a VPN, which means you connect to the internet using a server in another country. This means you can keep uploading those selfies for all your friends on facebook without a care in the world! This is one of the best best phone apps for travel if you are visiting China!
Price: FREE/ Small Fee
Available offline: NO
Book your accommodation here
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Travelling and especially backpacking is a wild adventure, but make sure you are covered just incase something goes wrong, which if you’re living it up to the fullest it’s always a possibility!
Check travel insurance prices with World Nomads here!
Check out our list of best websites for travellers:
Greatest websites to help you plan your travels!
What are your picks for best phone apps for travel?
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[…] One of the most powerful tools we have at our disposal is our mobile phones. These days they are so useful for booking flights, checking out hostels, seeing what there is to do in a city or getting in contact with your family for free. We recently complied a list of our favourite ones here: Ultimate List of Best phone Apps For Travel! […]