by Smartphones are steadily making other devices – and even physical media – obsolete. Your phone is now your camera, newspaper, library, map, entertainment hub, shopping portal, and more. This flexibility becomes even more important when you travel.
Forget bulky guidebooks and single-purpose gadgets, your phone can streamline your packing. Sure, it can’t replace your wardrobe (yet), but it can replace many other things that you would have to lugged around the world once. And it’s a great help for planning too.
At least it is two you have the right apps. So here are our top picks to get you started.
Head over to the best apps for:
Plan your trip
Sky scanner
You may feel loyal to an airline, but many people feel more loyal to their bank accounts. Skyscanner makes it a cinch to explore options for air travel, refine plans through various filters, and discover routes and deals you might never have considered before.
Cheap; Android, iOS
Todoist
When you’re thousands of miles from home, it’s not great to suddenly remember that you forgot an essential item or didn’t finish a task at home. Todoist allows you to create reusable lists, with the added benefit of cross-platform functionality and even allowing you to delegate tasks to others in your team.
Cheap; Android, iOS
Booking.com
This one uses the slogan “hotels and more” on the Google Play store, but the “hotels” function is what we’re here for. This app lets you see all kinds of places to stay during a trip – from swish hotels to quirky apartments – digging into the finer details and then finding out if your budget can cope.
Cheap; Android, iOS
DB Navigator
Planning train journeys, both at home and abroad, can be a nightmare. Google Maps makes a reasonable effort to provide details, but if you’re in Europe, DB Navigator is a better bet for planning trips – although you’ll need to visit individual operator websites to buy your tickets. Heading to the United States? Try Wanderu instead.
Cheap; Android, iOS
Atlas Obscura
Plenty of apps can tell you what’s popular in your destination. But instead Atlas Obscura leads you to off-the-beaten-path curiosities. The app includes more than 20,000 unexpected places. You can plan where to go and keep track of where you’ve been, and even add somewhere new when you find your own.
Cheap; Android, iOS
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To your flight
Flight Aware
Airplane tracking apps can be overloaded with features for enthusiasts. But when you travel, all you need to know is when your plane will take off – and where it is right now. FlightAware gets you to such data at speed, and it’s nice to have a button that addresses what many travelers have in mind: Where’s my plane?
Free + IAP; Android, iOS
Lego
Magazines are great, until you have to cram a dozen of them into your flight bag and then carry them around. For the price of a few publications, Readly provides instant access to more than 7,000 of the items – and countless back editions. You can even share your subscription with up to five friends.
£12.99 per month / Android, iOS
White Noise+
If you find flying stressful and overwhelming, with this app you can drown out noise through customizable ambient sound shapes that you set on a grid-based mixing desk. On Android? White Noise (99p) does a similar job, if not nearly as elegantly.
Free or £11.99; iOS
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Money and basic needs
NordVPN
VPNs play their hand when it comes to security, but they’re worth using to encrypt data on public Wi-Fi. They can also hide your location to access geoblock services or go shopping. NordVPN is my favorite – it’s reliable, fast and full of features. If you sign up, do so through the website, which offers far better details than anything you’ll find in the app. Cheap; Android, iOS
Find out more about how to save money on holiday by using a VPN in our guide.
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Currency
There are so many currency apps, but this one makes my list for its no-nonsense approach: add currencies; select one and tap out a value; instant conversions. You also get paid and historical charts and real-time rates, but unless something bad happens to the economy you’re staying in, the one-off rates ‘delay’ should be fine during a holiday.
Cheap; Android, iOS
Expense Tracker
There are more advanced budget apps out there, but who wants the hassle when you’re on vacation? This app is designed to help you define a budget, quickly log expenses, make sure that the total amount of the last ones he will receive too much more than the first one, and get another way with your vacation.
Free or £2.99; Android, iOS
Monzo
Whether you throw all your savings into a Monzo account or not, getting one (and the app) isn’t a bad idea if you’re traveling with friends. Monzo promises that foreign transactions are fee-free, and the app lets you split bills with just a few taps. It will even give you an expense report when your trip is over.
Free; Android, iOS
Find out more about how to find the best debit and credit cards for travel in our guide here.
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Activities and tours
tomorrow.io
Most weather apps provide data without context. This one is different. For each safe place, you can select activities you want to participate in. Then he will determine when the next time will be a good time for a spot of golf, eating out, or a quick run.
Cheap; Android, iOS
Google Translate
When you don’t speak the local language, Google Translate has you covered. You can download languages for offline use, to keep translations – and even conversations between two people – flowing without internet access. And you can even point your camera at menus and signs, and the app will try to figure them out on the spot.
Free / Android, iOS
Google Maps
You may already have this one on your phone. But you may not realize how convenient Google Maps is when you travel. You can store huge chunks of maps offline, and turn-by-turn directions will continue to work. And when you’re back online, you can quickly find out what’s local – and even how busy places of interest are at any given time.
Cheap; Android, iOS
AllTrails
Google Maps is fine for navigating a city – not for the great outdoors. When you want to hike, AllTrails gives you more than 400,000 routes to explore, each showing its length, time and elevation. Subscribe and you can download maps to use offline and, on your hand, get a nudge if you make a wrong turn.
Free + IAP; Android, iOS
Ski Tracks
If your ideal vacation involves skiing or snowboarding, this app ensures that your time is not wasted and you can track your progress on the piste. Turn it on when you start your day and it’ll pull in data you can view later to see how you’ve fared compared to friends – including geolocation snaps for those snowy selfies that is vital.
£1.89; Android • £1.99; iOS
Tide near me
Whether you’re planning a trip to an island temporarily connected to the mainland during low tide or just want to show off your surfing skills, you’ll need to know about incoming tides. This app is a simple yet effective way to check nearby tides and those critical times for the current day or week ahead.
Cheap; Android, iOS
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Coming home
Snapseed
Your phone takes great photos. But to do more with them, contact Snapseed. Google’s image editor is packed with easy-to-use filters and tools, including perspective correction and text overlay. Best of all, changes are non-destructive, so you can reconsider when you do ugly black and white on every holiday snap and realize you haven’t won that much.
Cheap; Android, iOS
Weak Jet Timeshifter
Traveling halfway around the world for the vacation of a lifetime? Exciting! Except when you return home and you’re jet lagged turning a zombie for a week. This app intelligently helps you adjust your sleep/wake cycle in the days leading up to your trip, so you have a good chance of staying awake at the office.
Free + IAP; Android, iOS
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