The apps to organize, step by step, the perfect trip.
New technologies have opened the door to a new travel model. Gone are the days of long road trips and endless hassles with hotel reservations, lunches and transportation. No need to lug entire backpacks with maps, compasses, and cans. We just need the mobile.
Traveling the world, an adventurer can appreciate the changes that the art of travel has undergone in recent decades. The long hours investigating indecipherable maps to find the most appropriate route, the headaches trying to communicate with the locals, even something as simple as having a light to illuminate us, are now replaced by a small telephone with coverage. Sometimes we don’t even need coverage. This list contains the best mobile applications to organize every detail of the trip, some widely known and others, more specific, used by the most experienced travelers.
Skyscanner
The flight search engine founded in 2001 is the best option to find the plane that takes us to the destination. With hundreds of airlines in its database, it was able to provide us with tickets based on trip length, number of stops, and price . Although it does not allow us to obtain all the flights through it, on some occasions it redirects us to other search engines such as Travelgenio or Travel2be, what makes this search engine so useful are its offers. Every month we can find the cheapest destinations, or those that best apply to our tastes . Travel alone, with family, to luxurious or exotic destinations, whether with the intention of returning or never returning, this search engine finds the best prices to take us to dreams.
Airbnb
Booking and Trivago have been the quintessential accommodation search applications for many years, but the truth is that the creators of this American search engine hit the nail on the head. No matter the destination, or how expensive the hotels are, with this application we can always find places to sleep at fantastic prices . And it is not only used for the classic British Bed & Breakfast style rental, it is also used by small hospitality businesses spread throughout the globe. The treatment of the hosts is always friendly, close, and gives anyone the opportunity to earn a few coins with their own house, anyone can offer to receive guests with this search engine.
Worldpackers
One moment! Why do we travel? We travel to meet new cultures, enjoy and expand the view. We travel for whatever reason and stick with it. Some travel for pleasure, backpacks slung over their backs, searching here and there for breadcrumbs, lodgings and short-term jobs in the farthest corner they can. For this type of traveler, the application that has job offers and short-term volunteering is ideal . Some places offer food, pay, or lodging, or even all three, and there may be the option of going home with more money than we had when we left. The ideal app for young people looking for faraway adventures.
CaraMaps
Although not everyone is looking for a hotel. Some prefer to take advantage of a few days of escape to fully enjoy the nature that is missing in the cities, and this application was made for them. Created in France, it contains up to 60,000 places to practice camping, whether in a tent or caravan, all over the world, especially in Europe. Photos of the places, prices and particular characteristics will avoid the days when we went blindly looking for the ideal campsite until we ended up sleeping next to a swamp and besieged by hordes of mosquitoes.
Map of Life
This app developed by Google fits perfectly with camping, and with any trip that is made to natural territories. The option that its users add content is what has allowed it to contain more than 30,000 species of animals spread all over the globe . In this way we will be able to know the fauna and flora of all the places we visit, just a click away. Maps specifying where each species is found and user comments on their behavior allow us to approach the biodiversity of any corner of the planet when years of study were required to achieve it before.
Maps me
Google Maps has managed to position itself as the most common map search engine today, but it sometimes happens that we run out of coverage and then, what can we do? The wonder of Maps.me is that it allows you to download very quickly the road maps of all the countries of the world and save them in the application until the right moment. With the option to save our favorite locations and search for restaurants or gas stations, whether traveling on foot, by car or public transport, we left the airport at one in the morning in Accra, Ghana, without a mobile card or acquaintances to guide us, And how do we get to the accommodation? Maps.me. Driving like savages through the Gobi deserts, the nearest town is hundreds of miles away and coverage is a distant memory. How do we find water? Maps.me. Infallible .
Tricount
The perfect app if you are traveling with friends . Sometimes it can be cumbersome to share the expenses of the trip, and doing the accounts back home usually ends up with someone in a worse position than they should. With Tricount it is possible to share the expenses of the trip, specifying who pays what and for which members of the group . The system itself is responsible for leveling the accounts so that they are all leveled.
Translated by Google
Sometimes, despite having all the applications we needed to quickly get to the accommodation, something is beyond our control. Traveling, nothing usually goes as expected. Then it will be necessary to take a first step in the inevitable journey when visiting new lands, which is precisely to get closer to their people and their culture and their traditions, and for that we need to find a way to communicate with them. At times, communication can become desperate. We think that by speaking Spanish or English, the rest of the planet is obliged to do so, and no. Not everyone knows English or Spanish. For this, the Google platform created a translator that instantly translates up to 103 languages, 59 of them without the need to connect to the internet.. But what is perhaps its most useful facet is the option to translate conversations in real time in 32 languages, allowing greater fluency in this walk through traditions and cultures of the wide world.
CAR
When you travel, you always come back with your wallet in crumbs. No matter how cheap this or that country is, one way or another we always manage to get into trouble with the currency exchange, and penny by penny, the euros escape like frightened sheep in a fence full of wolves. The international currency converter XE has launched an application where you can exchange , according to market values in real time, any currency on earth.
ICE
No matter how prepared we are, mishaps happen even on rare occasions. For this reason, it is advisable to leave home prepared, before treating, in case our health suffers any problem along the way. This application allows us to include all the information about our health: diseases, blood group, allergies, medical contacts … Anything that may be useful in an emergency, to facilitate the work of the health authorities of the country that we are going to visit.
Wifispc
We have dozens of applications that can be used without the need for coverage and when the moment of truth arrives, the only application that we needed does not work if it is not on a mobile network. Imminent disaster. That is what the application is for, which is capable of indicating where the closest points with Wi-Fi are located throughout the planet . It is very useful not only for pointing out the Wi-Fi networks that we so urgently need, but also because their passwords are written in the application by other users. It may be necessary to ask the owner of each network if he gives us his permission to use it , but in cases where there is no problem, we have guaranteed coverage.
TripAdvisor
This world-renowned app is a travel staple. Restaurants, flights, cruises, hotel reservations, practically everything you need to forge the skeleton of a trip, is in the application. However, its strong point is in the bar and restaurant sector . There are endless applications with this same purpose but none is as effective as TripAdvisor. Highly accurate user ratings, reviews and maps can ensure the best food anywhere on the planet, be it Guinea Bissau or California . Although if my opinion is of any use, when it comes to eating away from home it is best to ask the locals and not be afraid to take risks from time to time.
Measure
To get to know any destination more deeply, it is essential to make new friends. They will show us those places that no application has, the funniest plans and the legends that distort our favorite travel website. Although sometimes it can be difficult to meet new people in an unknown country. For this, the Meetme application is useful, something similar to Tinder but with more friendly intentions . It is important to understand that this application is used by people from all over the world, from all walks of life, and we may meet those who think almost oppositely to us. You need to go with an open mind .
Google Arts & Culture
The end of our trip is approaching and between the long meals, the hours of partying with new friends and the endless walks in the countryside, we realize that we have not visited a single museum, and we feel bad because we wanted to expand our knowledge of art with travel. The plane leaves in four hours and we have one last chance to visit a museum to fill that void. The Google app is ideal for this task, in collaboration with 1,200 museums from seventy countries. It allows us to discover all the information regarding schedules, exhibitions and styles, as well as giving us the opportunity to see these same exhibitions from our mobile and without leaving the site. If we have been short of hours, we can always download it and contemplate the works of Van Gogh from the long queues at the airport.
