I’m currently writing one long-ass article about the best travel apps and services for nomads, PTs and long-term travelers. I want to feature products making it easier to plan your travel , improve the travel experience , and finally help you get to know and explore the places you travel to .
What are your personal favorites? Let me know here and I’ll consider including them in the article (and give credit where credit is due, of course).
I’m a big fan of https://www.starlingbank.com/ it’s simple and quick to set up. Lots of features. Great for international travel and it also offers a business account
Xe.com app for iPhone - great for a quick currency check
Using the Google Translate app has made my life so much easier. I can take a picture of a sign and it can translate it into my native language or I can directly type in a word or phrase I’m struggling with. I’ve never used it to have a full conversation, but when asking questions it’s a game changer. I was in Poland a few months ago, and needed help finding my train. The person helping me spoke okay English, but kept pointing to two different trains that were two different colors. I tried to ask them if the train I was supposed to be on was yellow. Well they didn’t know the word ‘yellow’ and got a little frustrated. Until I popped the word into Google Translate app and showed them the screen showing the Polish word for yellow. Found my train!
For those who transit Singapore all the time, the iChangi App is a god-sent! Punch your flight details in and it gives you directions, alerts you to your flight and gate changes. Piece of mind in an app.
Biased but, will do a shameless plug here. Check out Blubyn - The future of travel . We have built the travel booking experience of the future, 10x better than the current options.
My top website for traveling is Airbnb. Sometimes - Hotelscombined.com.
To buy tickets, I use kiwi.com.
And offline map is a must not to get lost in a new place
Used TripIt for work travel, and continue to use it now. It compiles travel plans from email confirmations. Travel plans can be edited within the app to add planned activities not requiring reservations.
Google Lens for me is very useful. It is similar to Google Translate that can translate a sign written in another language. You might ask, why use a separate app when Google Translate can accomplish the same? Well, some Google Pixel phones got Google Lens built-in the camera app, and the camera on the Google Pixel is another travel necessity.
If you’re travelling in a group with friends, there are various apps that are great for tracking expenses.
Say there’s eight in the group; six of us go out for dinner, and I get the check. I enter the amount, and who was at the dinner. If four of us are sharing a rental car, whoever paid enters that, etc. During the trip, everyone can see the running totals, so spending tends naturally to even up - if you’ve “underpaid”, you might volunteer to get the next dinner. At the end of the trip, the app shows who owes who what.
A few of my go-to travel apps would be Google Maps for navigation, Klook for activity/attraction bookings and Grab for getting around.
For your article, it’d be good to mention apps that allow offline maps too, since data isn’t always reliable overseas. Have you used any apps for organizing travel photos? Always on the hunt for better ways to remember my trips.
Excited to check out your full roundup! Those three apps have been real lifesavers for me.