Some people see vacations as an opportunity to escape their phone and choose not to have international coverage abroad. While sometimes that’s definitely needed and I highly encourage taking at least one vacation that leaves you cut off from everyone and gives you the opportunity to focus on you and your travel partner, cell phones can come really handy when traveling. Today, I’ll focus on my favorite apps that I use for travel and my tips for getting the most out of them. Some of these apps don’t even require wi-fi!

Before the trip:

Before actually leaving on the trip, you have to plan the trip. That’s where the following aps that help track down cheap flights come in.

SkyScanner – This app lets you search for flights, hotels and cars all in one place. My favorite thing about this apps is the price alerts. You can set the app to alert you any time the flight you are looking for goes down in price. This is really convenient when you’ve already decided to go on the trip but still have some time for booking. I also think this is the most user friendly and easy set up to search for flights in general.  They also have an option called “Everywhere” that lets you browse cheap flight prices to destinations around the world if you are someone that is spontaneous and up for anything. I wish I had the freedom to do something like this but unfortunately, with my school and work schedule that may never be the case for me. Another great thing about this app is that it is available in over 30 languages. It is also available for both iPhones and Android.

Hitlist – With this app you – type in where you would like to travel and get recommendations on when to travel to that specific place and what there is to do there. This app is the ultimate travel inspiration app and I highly recommend it for people who have been bitten by the travel bug aka me and you (since you are reading this). You can browse pictures of different destinations, see what your friends are up to as far as travel goes, and best of all – find affordable flights or ways to get to your destination. I highly recommend this app. It is also available for both iPhones and Android.

During the Trip

Stay.com- City Travel Guide with Offline Maps- This app is perfect for when you are traveling outside the country and you don’t want to use any data. What you do is you download the map of the city you will be visiting before you leave on your trip. The app will allow you to select sites, attractions, restaurants and hotels that you want to see. The app will put pins down on your map to mark these locations, you can even type in the address of your Airbnb and it will put a pin down for you. The app also will have hundreds of suggestions for other things to do in the city to help give you more ideas for activities when visiting. Now that you have taken time to plan what you would like to see, when you arrive the app even on airplane mode will place you on the map. The map will show where you are in comparison to all of the attractions and restaurants that you wanted to visit and will tell you how far away you are from each place. It will give you arrows to show you which direction to walk and will save you loads of time by not getting lost. This app has saved me multiple times and is a perfect way to help organize your trip and make sure that you get to see everything that a city has to offer. The only downside to this app is that not every city in the world can be downloaded so it is important to look up if the city that you want to visit is available on the app ahead of time.

iTranslate – This app is definitely vital for traveling in a country where you don’t speak the language. I wish I had this app when I went to Italy but I was able to put it to good use in Montreal. The app does a great job translating words, phrases, whatever you need. It is super user friendly and even has a speaker icon that will speak the phrase or word for you in the language you’ve chosen. This comes handy when you’re trying to communicate with someone so that they’re not constantly trying to read what you’ve written in the app.

So there you have it – my most used and trusted travel apps. I highly recommend checking each one of them out before your next trip! Let me know if you have any suggestions on travel apps that you have used in the past that have been helpful! I’m always looking for new ones!

Thanks for reading and as always, I hope this was helpful!