There is no doubt carrying around a computer in your pocket makes travel easier. With the apps I will talk about in this post, you can take your travel game to the next level. Some of these will likely be known to most people but others, as they were to us, will be completely new.
Google Maps - Extra Features
1. Viator and Get Your Guide
Both of these apps are fairly similar but are ideal for finding excursions at your destination. They're both very easy to use and available on Android and IOS. It is as simple as searching for a location or a specific excursion and will display what is available. You can also book there and then and most ads will go into great detail of what is included and what isn't.
The ability to pay for excursions simply and in your own currency is also a huge bonus. Whilst traveling in countries with a foreign currency and where there is a language barrier, it's takes all the difficultly out of booking and allows you to read reliable reviews from travellers before you.
2. TripIt
Is our latest find and it has changed the game for planning trips with complicated logistics! Personally we use the free version and there are definitely some drawbacks but we feel it is adequate for most.
It works by creating automatic itineraries using email confirmation of bookings. You can either give the app access to your email account or manually send booking confirmation to an email address provided by TripIt. It will then appear in the app and let you select a trip in which to use it. In most cases it will automatically populate into the itinerary without any issues. If required you can then edit it or manually add elements without any confirmation (handy for countries that deal in cash).
That app seems incredibly versatile and makes keeping all of your info in one place very easy. Especially as you can add documents to the itinerary such as PDF tickets or screenshots of details. We found it very useful for showing at border control points when asked about our plans or for checking into accommodation.
3. Booking.com - App
One of the better known travel apps is Booking.com but it has some excellent features that makes it worthy of this list. We most frequently use it for accommodation and have had great success with it, even last minute.
It also has an excellent rewards scheme called Genius which works in levels, as you use the app more to book things, you earn points and go up level which lead to further savings.
4. Google Maps
This one may seem obvious but read on...
Google maps has some great features and I personally like how it operates. There are however 2 things I do that others may not and may help you out.
Download offline maps. If you're going somewhere and don't know how reliable your phone signal will be or don't want to use data roaming. You can download offline maps for a specific area before you go. There are plenty of tutorials online on how to do this if you're not sure. To ensure everything you need is downloaded, make sure you search or save your places of interest to a list on your Google account.
This leads on nicely to my next point - Saved Places on Google. With a Google account and the Maps app, you can create useful lists of saved places that display with a special icon. This is a great way to save places of interest when planning your next trip and will guarantee you can see the places when using offline maps. To take this one step further, when planning you can use the app but also create more customisable maps using MyMaps on Google.
5. Trip Advisor
AKA old faithful. This is probably one of the best known review apps, utilised around the world, it is an excellent source for peace of mind. If you're travelling in questionable places where scams are prevalent or you're particularly keen to make sure you get what you're paying for, use this app to check first!
6. Trip.com
Trip.com is another highly rated app and it saves us a fortune in flight bookings. On our most recent trip to Africa we saved nearly 50% of the original cost of the flights. It also offers features similar to SkyScanner where you can select a departure airport and it will come up with the best flight deals for a set of given dates. A great option if you want to travel but don't know where you fancy.