Prepare for Takeoff
Before your next trip, you're likely to research your destination and get a sense of how much money you're going to spend on the big necessities, such as flights, hotels, and car rentals. A few apps on this list, including Google Flights and SkyScanner, help you draw a quick baseline for the cost of flights. They also suggest alternative days to travel, if you can be flexible on your travel dates to save a little money.
Researching hotels is another subject travelers take seriously. The professional photos a hotel has on its own website aren't necessarily reflective of reality. Apps such as Orbitz and TripAdvisor have great hotel reviews, and TripAdvisor offers plenty of photos that have been uploaded by travelers rather than advertising professionals. The global community of dedicated TripAdvisor users is a testament to that site's usefulness.
Tickets, Please!
As you start to make reservations and prebook accommodations and activities at your destinations, you'll probably need a little help keeping track of all the details, such as the hotel's address, rental car company information, and other confirmation numbers. TripIt and TripCase are two apps that automatically strip out the fine print and collate only the most essential travel information from confirmation emails into a tight and chronological itinerary.
I always like to keep an offline backup of my travel details, so I use Evernote, a super flexible note-taking app that works just as well as saving travel information as it does memos from business meetings. Sometimes I even upload to Evernote screenshots of maps and mapped directions, just to be extra sure I have a backup available offline.
Changing Course
What do you do when you arrive at a hotel and it's just not to your liking? With a couple of travel apps that cater to last-minute changes, such as HotelTonight and Roomer, you can find a suitable and inexpensive alternative lickety-split.
Likewise, there are a bunch of great travel apps that direct you toward fun things to do and see in the moment, which are ideal for spontaneous travelers. Gogobot, for example, can help you find places to eat, play, and sleep based on your location and based on your personal preferences, such as whether you're more outdoorsy or are looking for family-friendly spots.
Road Tripping
Traveling by car? Directions, traffic, and good places to stop en route are probably of the utmost concern, but they're nearly impossible to plan for in advance. iExit is one app you'll want to have on your phone before your next long car ride. It tells you the services that are at different U.S. highway exits, so you can decide whether to wait another 30 minutes or take the next available stop. Roadtrippers is another excellent app for car travel because it finds all the great American roadside attractions (giant roller skate, anyone?), as well as restaurants and other services that are near your route.
GasBuddy is another essential app for road trips. It tells you how much different service stations are charging for fuel, giving you immediate insight into whether it's worthwhile to fill up now or wait until you're farther down the road.
Conserve Your Data!
A lot of my favorite travel apps, especially those that give me directions in real time, are data hogs, so if you're serious traveler, you'll want backup apps that give you the same basic information without requiring a cell signal. Maps.Me is a great example. This map app not only saves you data by keeping maps offline, but also has more accurate maps than Google Maps for less-visited locations. If you stray far from the beaten path, it's one app you should download immediately.
Tripomatic and Triposo also keep some of their content offline so you can see it on your smartphone or tablet at any time, but they specialize more in things to do and see rather than mapped directions.
One word of warning about offline apps: Be choosy with them. If you download very detailed maps of entire countries, they will take up considerable space on your phone. There's a trade-off, to be sure, between having multiple maps and leaving some space free on your phone to take photos and videos while you travel. When it comes to offline maps, I say download the maps you need before you arrive, and make sure to delete them after you arrive. You should also find out whether data works well for you at your destination, or once you get back home.
Bon Voyage
No matter how you choose to travel, having a few travel apps installed on your phone before you leave home is always a good idea. You don't want to be stuck without important details about your itinerary or left not knowing where to go if you need to change your plans unexpectedly.
Free
City Guides and Offline Maps by Stay.com lets you explore new travel destinations and cobble together a loose itinerary for what you might want to see, do, and eat when you arrive. You can plan new trips from the app, as well as import itineraries you've designed on the website, and save them offline so you don't need to use data when you're roaming around town.
Available on: Android, iOS
Free
I use the note-taking app Evernote to save notes about practically everything, and that includes my travel itineraries. Evernote can keep a copy of important travel information offline. Let's say you show up at your destination and can't get any data on your phone to, say, pull up a confirmation email for your rental car or find the address of your hotel. If you've backed up a copy of the important details to Evernote--which you can do by simply forwarding emails--you'll have everything you need regardless of cell signal strength.
Available on: Android, iOS, Mac, Web, Windows, Windows Phone
Field Trip (by Google)
Free
The Field Trip app by Google looks for sites of interest around you, based on categories you select and your location, and it pops up cards on your phone when you're near something interesting. If you're driving and have a connected Bluetooth audio device, you'll hear the alerts instead. Field Trip taps into recommendations from travel and lifestyle publications, such as Thrillist, Zagat, and Sunset, as well as Songkick and Flavorpill for finding local music.
Available on: Android, iOS
Gogobot
Free
Gogobot is a social travel app that helps you find places to stay, eat, and play. Gogobot's globetrotting community of users upload photos, information, and ratings for the sites, while also tagging them based on different interests, such as family, foodie, local, outdoor, budget, and adventure. You can explore an area ahead of time and save points of interest to a list in the app. Photos taken by other users help you get a better sense of what you might find at different places of interest.
Available on: Android, iOS, Web
source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2422244,00.asp
