Whether you’re a businessman who travels frequently or you’re just planning your next family vacation, your smartphone can really improve your overall travel experience. From booking hotel rooms and flights to packing and exchanging currency, and even finding an authentic restaurant, we have come up with a list of the best Android apps that not only will change the way you’re travelling , but can even save you money while you’re at it.
Booking flights, hotels and car rentals
TripAdvisor
This is absolutely the first app you need to check when you travel. It has almost everything you’ll need, from searching and booking flights and hotels before travelling, to finding good restaurants and other interesting things to do while you travel.
“With over 150 million reviews and opinions by travelling customers, TripAdvisor makes it easy to find the lowest airfare, best hotels, great restaurants, and fun activities, wherever you go. And booking options for hotels, restaurants and flights are just a tap away.”
KAYAK – Flights, hotels and cars
Kayak is an ‘all in one’ app for searching and booking flights, hotels and car rentals. It is one of my first stops when travelling. And besides checking the on-going rates by different airlines, the app also helps you to find the best travel choices easily by searching hundreds of travel sites at once. You can compare the results, and when you find something that fits your budget and tastes, (and that’s what I like the most about Kayak) you can book it where you want: at the airline site, from the hotel, or at the online travel site.
Skyscanner – Compare flights deals
Skyscanner is one of the most popular flight comparison app, with over 35 million downloads so far. Whether you’re looking for the cheapest flights for your summer holiday, or last minute flights for a spontaneous getaway, Skyscanner can really save you money. The comprehensive flight checker includes high end flag carriers, charter flights, and the best of the budget airlines – giving you the greatest choice when it comes to cheap flights. With Skyscanner’s flexible search options you can browse prices across a whole month, or even a year, allowing you to get the best available deals. And the best thing is: booking is always direct with the airline or travel agent, which makes the price even cheaper, and with no extra fees added.
Skiplagged – Extremely cheap flights
Also known as “hidden city ticketing”, Skiplagged can help you find cheap airfare by letting you book flights with multiple stops and then deplane before reaching their final destinations. This is often much cheaper than booking a flight directly to the desired destination – the savings are sometimes substantial (e.g. 80%)!
There has been a lot of buzz over this service lately, with United Airlines and Orbitz both suing Skiplagged for encouraging travelers to exploit the frowned upon practice of using hidden city ticketing. But as of now, the website and app are still up and running.
Agoda – Smarter hotel booking
Agoda is one of the fastest-growing hotel reservation platforms worldwide, listing Over 500,000 hotels and providing services in 38 different languages. There are over 8 million new hotel reviews every year which makes it very easy to choose your perfect place to stay.
Agoda has pretty much the same features as the popular Booking.com app, and some will even say the second is even better, but personaly I used them both and found the prices on Agoda a bit cheaper.
Roomer – Hotel rooms with huge discounts
Besides being a traditional hotel booking service, Roomer’s main feature is to allows people to book hotel rooms from other people who had to cancel their trips, at incredible low prices.
If you’re stuck with a hotel reservation that you can’t use, you can sell it on Roomer instead of lose all of your money to cancellation fees and nonrefundable booking rates. On the other side, if you’re looking for a great deal on a hotel room, book one of the exclusive listings on Roomer and save up to 80% on your next vacation. And by doing so you’re not only getting the best price but you’re also helping someone out. It’s a win-win situation for everybody!
Before you leave
TripIt – Travel organizer
Automate your travelling plans and organizing. Keep your entire travel plans in one convenient place. Flight schedules, hotel bookings, train journeys and meeting information – simply forward your travel confirmation emails to TripIt and TripIt will automagically pull all the info into your TripIt account, in a detailed daily itinerary for each trip. As you book more for that trip, TripIt is smart enough to recognize the matching dates and organize it accordingly.
Besides creating your vacation itinerary, TripIt can also suggests attractions and activities according to your schedule and destination, along with weather updates and local maps.
TripIt is very useful in its free version but you can also upgrade to TripIt Pro for real-time notifications on every flight you schedule. The pro version will also find the best seats available, find alternate flights, and keep track of your frequent flyer programs. The app will even let you know when you’re eligible for a refund, and it’s all in one place!
PackPoint – Packing list organizer
If you’re like me, and you tend to find out you forgot something for the trip when it’s already too late, then this app is for you. PackPoint will help you to organize everything you need to pack in your luggage and suitcase based on the length of the trip, the weather at your destination, and the activities you planned for the trip.
PackPoint is free to use with an optional premium version for $2.99. One of the features I like the most on the premium version is the option to connect PackPoint to TripIt – which will auto-create all of your packing lists based on your TripIt account.
Download PackPoint [free/$2.99]
LoungeBuddy – Access airport lounges
Mostly used by frequent flyers, LoungeBuddy gives you the ability to search, book, and access lounges in over 600 airports around the world. If you have a flight delay, a layover, or you just ended up getting to the airport much earlier than needed, use LoungeBuddy to purchase instant access to the lounge, if there’s one available at the airport of course, and walk right into your airport oasis – no elite status or first class tickets required!
Jet lag begone
Nothing spoils a trip more than a jet lag. One trip abroad won’t affect much, but this app could be very helpful for frequent fliers who constantly jump between different time zones. Just enter your travel plan details and it will provide you with accurate jet lag preventing steps. The algorithm, which is based on a 4+ years of Canadian Military research, provides a customized schedule for you to follow, and can even add your customized plan to your calendar.
Download Jet Lag Begone [free]
During the trip
Triposo – World travel guide
Triposo has guides for pretty much everywhere in the world, it works offline and even has an offline map so you don’t need to worry about roaming charges. Just remember to pick your destination and download its guide before the trip. The guide will give you an overview of your destination, including detailed travelling maps, a currency converter, weather forecast, and information about major sights, the local nightlife, festivals, culture, and food.
Google Translate
This one is a no brainer, you don’t want to find yourself at the wrong place just because the taxi driver didn’t speak your language. With Google Translate you can use your voice, camera, keyboard or handwriting, and the app will speak up the translation on your phone speaker. This is mostly useful for one on one conversations.
The best thing is you don’t need internet connection in order to use Google Translate, just don’t forget to download the necessary language packs before you leave home.
Download Google Translate [free]
Foodspotting – Find great dishes and restaurants
Want to try a specific dish that the city you’re visiting is known for? Foodspotting can help you find local users’ recommendations along with pictures and reviews. For each available city, users can browse the dishes alphabetically, by category, rank, and even neighborhood location. But for me, the most useful feature is the option to search for nearby restaurants on the list based on your phone’s current GPS location. Another nice feature is the crowd-sourced dish discovery app which predicts your next craving based on the dishes you liked.
*Foodspotting covers most of the world but in case you’re traveling where it’s not available, or if you just want to try an alternative, I recommend Zomato.
Roamy – Prevent roaming charges
Using your phone to access the internet through cellular network when you travel abroad can be very expensive. The simple solution is to find a WiFi spot of course, or to just turn off your phone while travelling. But what’s the fun in that? With Roamy you can disable internet access for all the apps besides the ones you really need while abroad. For example: in case you don’t need the Facebook app to run all the time but you still want to get messages through WhatsApp, you can do this easily with Roamy.
FindPenguins – Create a travel blog
FindPenguins is a free app for creating your own travel blog and keep those nice memories from your trip. Set footprints while you travel, with your stories, favourite photos and the location, detected automatically by your phone or manually set, and let FindPenguins do the rest! You’ll get your own beautiful travel journal, including your travelling maps, smart photo albums, inspiring facts and figures and more. Keeping and sharing adventures has never been so easy and fun!
And besides keeping your memories, FindPenguins also lets you keep track of other people’s travels so you can get some inspiration for your next trip.
Presence – Check what’s happening back home
Worry about your house while you travel? Or maybe you want to make sure the dog sitter is doing his/her job? The Presence app might be a good solution. The best thing about Presence is you don’t need any expensive video surveillance systems, you just use a spare or old smartphone/tablet. Install Presence on a device before you leave and point it at whatever you’d like to monitor. Then, add the Presence app to the device you’re taking with you, turn it on, and you’ll see what’s going on back home in real time.
Presence also serves as a motion detector and will send you notifications with recorded videos when there’s something unusual happens. Furthermore, you can start a two-way video/audio conversation with the other device.
The Next Generation of Travels – Useful CrowdSourcing Apps
Airbnb – Find a place to stay
Who needs hotels? With Airbnb you can book unique accommodations from other Airbnb users who share their spaces in 190 countries and more than 34,000 cities. So whether you’re looking for an apartment for a night, or a villa for a month, Airbnb got you covered at any price range. All you have to do is enter your destination and travel dates into the search bar to discover unique places to stay, anywhere in the world.
Uber – Find a ride
Uber helps you to find a private driver in more than 50 countries, in an entirely new and modern way of travelling. You don’t have to explain anything to the driver or deal with cash anymore, just order a ride and pay for it on your phone, track the arrival time of your car, take a comfortable seat, and let Uber take care of the payment.
The most important feature for me is the ability to easily set your pickup location on the map, even if you don’t know exactly where you are. That’s very convenient and saved me lots of time more than once. If you wanted to find a rented bus in Lubbock, we’d certainly recommend a good limo company in that area too.
Tripoto – Discover trips shared by real travelers
Discover hidden travel destinations and thousands of personal travel itineraries of friends, global travelling experts and celebrities, at the biggest global travel community. Browse through their travel photos, maps, budgets, reviews and recommendations, in order to plan your perfect vacation.
I really liked the “how to reach” feature which allows you to find the fastest and most convenient way to reach your destination. Just enter your starting location and get up-to-date information on all the transportation options and schedules you need to complete your trip itinerary.
Waze – Social GPS maps and traffic
Nothing is more frustrating than being stuck in a traffic jam while you travel, it’s a waste of time and money. Your best solution is Waze: turn-by-turn voice guided navigation with road alerts along the route, shared by the local drivers. The app will automatically reroute as conditions change on the road and will also find the cheapest gas stations on the way. The maps are consistently edited and updated by the Waze community so you’ll never stumble upon old roads which are no longer exist in reality, which is not the case on other GPS apps.
There are many other great apps that didn’t make it to the list, but that’s just because we didn’t want it to be too long. Let us know in the comments what are your favorite apps for travelling.
Ste Boyd
Wowzers! That’s a great list!!
Amit Peri
Thank you mate 🙂 The apps on the crowd-sourcing sector are my favorites BTW.
Waze App
Oh my goodness! Incredible article dude! Many thanks, However I am encountering difficulties with your RSS.