Travel Smarter Now! The Free Travel Apps That Actually Improve Your Life
Let’s face it, your phone is your very best travel companion. (Photo: Getty Images)
So many apps, so little time. That phrase has actually become the story of my life lately. It seems like every day, I get an email about a new (and/or improved) travel app that is going to change my life. And, as the writer of a column about tech and travel, people are always asking me whether any of these applications have done just that.
I have very little space left on either my iPhone or my Android due to the downloading and road-testing of these new apps. Most of them I delete after a single trip. Seriously. About 70 percent of the apps that promise to change my life do absolutely nothing to improve my travel. If they don’t improve my travel, then they go into the great app pasture in the sky.
But along the way, there have been a few keepers, some unexpected surprises that have managed to stick around and over the course of the past six months have added genuine value to trips.
No one likes a bargain more than I do, so in this list I am going to stick to the best free travel apps. In my experience, when it comes to apps, you don’t always get what you pay for. And the free ones are some of the very best and helpful out there.
The goal of this app is to let you know about absolutely everything happening around you. That’s pretty daunting. Actually, the app let’s you follow the social activity in a location simply by drawing with your finger on a map. Draw a circle around your travel location, and CO Everywhere will pull in all of the public Instagrams, Facebook photos, tweets, and check-ins nearby. You can search by location or by event, or just browse the app to actually plan your travel.
As someone who rents cars about three times a month but doesn’t use a car in my daily commute, I first began using GasBuddy to find the cheapest gas closest to the car rental location. GasBuddy crowdsources gas prices to provide you with the most up-to-date information on gas prices based on your location. It is a must-download for any road trip.
GateGuru’s database of airport amenities spans 191 airports around the world. The app identifies shopping, restaurants, restrooms, spas, and children’s areas in practically every terminal of every major airport. It is an essential companion for any traveler.
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Plug your dietary restrictions and nutritional needs into HealthyOut, and this app will find you the perfect restaurant. With information for more than 500 cities, you can get crazy specific about any and all weird food issues. Want a paleo-friendly restaurant with appetizers under 400 calories and gluten-free options? Try asking your concierge for that one.
This is the app that Siri was made for. Speak any phrase into your voice-recognition software, and this app can translate it for you into 52 different languages.
Roomlia allows you to find hotel deals seven nights in advance of your stay. Unlike most booking apps, Roomlia has no ties to a user’s credit card information. It passes the credit card data on to the hotel securely, which means that the user can handle booking changes directly with his or her hotel of choice, making it much easier on the traveler and the hotel.
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I have said it before, and I will say it again: Tinder is an incredibly useful travel app. Free yourself from the mindset that this app is all about hooking up, and use it to meet like-minded people (locals or visitors) in your travel locale.
My expat friends Jonathan and Elizabeth are currently jet-setting about France and Europe and are very difficult to keep up with. I asked Jon to email me his itinerary so that I could figure out a way to meet up with them along one of their stops.
He sent me a link to TripIt. This travel organizing app automatically creates a master itinerary so you can access all your travel plans at any time on any device. With TripIt, you can organize all your travel plans in one place and share itineraries with family, friends, and colleagues via email or text.
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This is one of those apps that you never thought you needed until the day you downloaded it. Then you don’t want to live without it. TruxMap lets you search for your favorite food trucks and then track down their locations in 34 U.S. cities. It’s fabulous for exploring the mobile food scene of a new city.
Think about this like a search engine for cheap flights. Skyscanner lets you search and compare flights to get the best bang for your buck as far out as a year. This app also allows you to book directly with the airline or the travel agent, cutting out those pesky middleman fees.
Sick of bogus reviews on Yelp? Me too. Wisely Explore ties customer reviews to their credit cards to make sure they actually made an investment before they began their rant. You can use Wisely to search for restaurants, stores, and bars. The results are then ranked by transactional data rather than users’ rankings.
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