Essential Apps for Backpackers & Travelers
Travel is the movement of people between distant geographical locations. Travel can be done by foot, bicycle, automobile, train, boat, bus, airplane, ship or other means, with or without luggage, and can be one way or round trip.
Planning on taking a trip soon? Then make it an even better experience with these useful travel apps. Whether you need to navigate an unfamiliar place without the use of mobile data, translate and indecipherable foreign language, or easily book your next stay, these are the top travel apps that always make sure that you have installed before you set off on your next adventure.
1. Skyscanner
The popular flight search engine Skyscanner has its own app, making it easier to search for flights on your smartphone or tablet.
image source pr newswire
2. Wise
Wise is used to cheaply convert your home currency to foreign currency. Wise’s exchange rates are much better than those of typical banks. If you sign up for a full Wise account, you can also get a debit card that lets you take money out abroad without added fees (up to a monthly maximum).
3. MAPS.me
MAPS.me is an awesome maps app that lets you download map data for a country or region so you can even use it when offline. This app was a serious life-saver when I was trying to find my way through the infinite windy alleyways of the medina in Fez, Morocco — and so many other places where I’d have gotten totally lost!
image source MAPS.ME
Since MAPS.me is based on the Open Streets Map project, it often has details that are not visible on Google or Apple Maps. It’s much more suitable for exploring a city on foot or for hiking in nature, as it will often show all the paths and natural features where Google or Apple Maps will show just a green void. In some developing countries, MAPS.me is also much better for road navigation.
4. Duolingo
What better time to learn a language than while you’re fully immersed in that language on a trip? Duolingo makes language learning fun by adding game-like scoring and progression systems. It’s free and it’s excellent for learning the basics. Unlock the Flirting pack and you can even learn such useful phrases as “I’m not drunk, I’m just intoxicated by you.” Hello there locals.
image source Duolingo
5. Splitwise
if you traveling together then Splitwise is just amazing for splitting your bills or just keeping track of your expenses. I use Splitwise all the time when I’m traveling with a group or even when I’m traveling with my partner. You can easily add expenses to the list, specify who it should be split with, and keep track of who’s paid. The best feature is that you can automatically settle all your bills at the end of your trip. It looks at what everyone owes each other and then provides the simplest way for everyone to settle their bills.
6. Google Drive
Speaking of data security, be sure to back up your data. There are many travelers telling their sob stories about how they lost all their photos, videos.
Make sure your phone is set up to sync with either Apple iCloud or with Google Drive (or with a competing service such as Dropbox or Microsoft’s Onedrive). Google Drive gives you 15 GB for free. I personally recommend the $2 a month plan for 100 GB of cloud storage(based on your data), which gets synced across all your devices.
