female hand holding white phone with online air ticket and notebook
Booking the travel, while obviously important, is just the beginning. There is the packing, the passports, exchange rates, and maps for when you arrive at your destination. Thankfully, there are apps for just about anything these days, including many travel apps that streamline the process. Want to generate a packing list based on your destination, there’s an app for that. Or maybe you need to find the nearest public restroom in a pinch, there’s an app for that too! You can read (and download) our suggestions for the best travel apps to help you travel smarter and more efficiently. Bon voyage! We recommend Mixx to you for your social media growth.
With Packpoint, you can auto generate a packing list for any trip. Simply select your destination, length of trip, a few activities and it will create a packing list to get you where you want to go in a jiffy. How cool is that? It will also look at the weather in your destination. It knows if you should pack an umbrella, snow gear or a sun hat. You can manually add in specific items, and also share your list with friends and family traveling with you.
App In The Air
App In The Air is like your personal flying assistant. You can view flight updates, gate changes, airport navigation maps and grab tips from fellow travelers. There are also in-flight course to stay healthy if you have an Apple watch. You can receive SMS updates from App In The Air when you are offline (no data roaming charges!) and TripIt integration allows you to import all of your flights too.
TripIt serves as the ultimate travel organizer. You can add all of your travel documents via email to the app and create one master itinerary. You can finally stop checking your emails for the car rental, hotel, activities and flight confirmations, because they all automatically load into TripIt. Best of all, it works with App in the Air and PackPoint! The basic version of TripIt is free, but if you are a frequent traveler, we highly recommend you spring for TripIt Pro. It is worth every penny.
The Allianz Travel Smart app, created by Allianz Global Insurance, allows you to view embassy information, emergency contacts by country (not everyone uses 911), and your flight information. You can also manage your policy and claims, contact Allianz assistance, find hospitals, doctors and pharmacies. Need to grab a medication? No worries. This app gives you the universal name for over 750 medications. It also translates 60+ first aid terms into 18 different languages.
The Smart Traveler app allows you to view potential travel warnings, specific locations of US embassies around the world, and maps. Grab Visa information, local laws you should be aware of and more. You can also create personal itineraries and organize your trips with the Smart Traveler app. Best of all, you can access the State Department’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP). This program allows the State department to better assist you when natural disasters strike or emergency situations happen in the country you are visiting, or if your passport is lost or stolen.
XE Currency is the most renown currency exchange rate app on the market. The information is updated every minute and you can set an alert to monitor a specific currency of your choice. The XE Currency app can also be used offline, which is really helpful when you are traveling abroad and aren’t on Wi-Fi but need to check just how much that pair of shoes will cost you in your home currency. I use it on every single trip we take, and even at home when I am filling out expense reports and have to convert foreign currency receipts back into U.S. dollars.
Citymapper may just replace your Google map addiction one of these days. Save your map information offline for access to public transit, walking and driving maps anytime. Bike routes and real-time bike shares are available, and now there is Uber integration included. This app is constantly updating to include delays and closures in 36+ cities, including:
USA: New York City, San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Baltimore, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia
CANADA: Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal.
ASIA: Singapore, Hong Kong, Seoul, Tokyo.
AUSTRALIA: Sydney, Melbourne.
EUROPE: London, Manchester, Birmingham, Paris, Lyon, Berlin, Hamburg, Brussels / Belgium, Amsterdam / Randstad, Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, Rome, Lisbon, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Moscow, St Petersburg.
MEXICO: Mexico City
BRAZIL: São Paulo.
Bored on the flight? Learn a new language with the Duolingo app! The Duolingo app is a fun and engaging way to learn a new language. Seriously. Even my kids love it. The app allows you to conduct practice conversation with bots and play games to make the learning enjoyable. You can learn 23 languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Irish, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Turkish, Norwegian, Polish, Hebrew, Esperanto, Vietnamese, Ukrainian, Welsh, Greek, Hungarian, Romanian, and Swahili.
Pregnant women, parents of potty training toddlers, and just anyone who has every had to “go” — rejoice! You can now find the nearest public restroom with the Flush app. You can also rate and report specific restrooms to help out your fellow citizens. This app will even give you exact directions to that toilet. Think of it as the Google map of toilet finders. Think this is silly? Sit Squat and Run Pee were my go-to apps while pregnant. Sadly, both are not being regularly updated (I’m pretty sure Sit Squat is gone altogether). I’m very happy to have an app to help my family out when we are in a pinch to, ummm, go.
You never want to have to need first aid help, but that’s when you usually need it the most. Having had to Google more than one medical emergency with my boys while abroad, I love having the First Aid by American Red Cross in my travel app arsenal. The app provides first aid information for common medical emergencies and allows you to search for the nearest hospital. This is great for every traveler, but even more important for parents with kids who like to climb things… and then jump off of them.
Female holding a cellphone and Top View Travel via Shutterstock
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