The 6 Best Travel Apps I Always Use On Every Trip

These are the 6 best travel apps on my phone that I always use on every trip to help me navigate the world and make my travels more enjoyable.

Travel apps

With a wealth of online information and a range of handy travel apps at your disposal, discovering the world has never been easier.

When I began travelling in my late teens and during my backpacking days as a student, smartphones didn’t exist, and you had to rely on old-fashioned internet cafés to check your email and stay in touch with family and friends.

To navigate city streets or national road networks, you had to rely on old-fashioned printed maps or simply ask for directions, and while this could be cumbersome compared to modern navigation tools, it at least helped you develop a strong sense of direction.

Although the internet and smartphones have taken away much of the old travel charm — the exploration of the unknown and the unpredictability that could get you into trouble, but also lead to wonderful moments you’d otherwise never have experienced — we can also say that travel apps have erased cultural and physical borders, made travel accessible to a wider segment of the population, and made it all a bit easier to manage.

Below, you’ll find six of the best travel apps that I use myself when I travel, and I can highly recommend them to you.

1. Google Lens

Although an increasing number of people worldwide speak English, and many street signs in countries as diverse as China and Ukraine are bilingual, you will undoubtedly encounter situations abroad where no one speaks a word of English, or where signs and restaurant menus are entirely in a foreign language or even a different script.

This is where Google Lens comes in handy, as this travel app can take a picture of any text in a foreign language, and it will automatically translate it for you into English or your own native language.

This works especially well if you’re browsing a food menu at a small local restaurant or trying to figure out what’s written on your train ticket, including your seat number and carriage.

It’s of course not completely foolproof, as the app sometimes struggles with words written in a fancy font or provides odd translations for certain national dishes or the unique names given to them by a restaurant.

But I’d say it works well enough about two-thirds to three-quarters of the time to give you a good idea of what is meant.

Another point where Google Lens comes in handy is that you can upload a picture of a certain building or sight, and the app can then identify it, which is especially helpful when browsing travel pictures and wondering what you’re seeing and where the picture was taken.

The reason I put Google Lens at the top of my list of the best travel apps is that it’s one of those tools even old-school travel purists will appreciate.

It allows you to communicate with people from vastly different cultures and makes dining at local restaurants far off the beaten tourist path much easier, especially if you have dietary restrictions or are a picky eater.

2. Mapy & OsmAnd

A great navigation app is essential when travelling, and although Google Maps and Apple Maps are among the most popular, I don’t consider them the best.

Sure, when sticking to main roads on a trip by car or when I’m exploring cities on foot, these apps will certainly suffice, and I often use Google Maps on my Android phone in such situations.

When exploring off-the-beaten-path destinations or going hiking on your trip, it’s a different story, as navigation and map apps like Mapy and OsmAnd offer much more detail and provide more accurate routes.

The point is that in many cases, hiking paths, dirt tracks, and similar routes aren’t visible on Google Maps or are only rudimentarily depicted, making navigation difficult.

Take for example the situation I found myself in last year when I walked from the railway station in Cruceni, Romania, to Jasa Tomic in Serbia, as the sandy agricultural path from Cruceni to the actual border post wasn’t visible on Google Maps, which wanted to send me on a long detour, while Mapy and OsmAnd correctly displayed this shortcut.

The more detailed nature and complicated interface of these navigational apps, compared to Google Maps, may be off-putting for people with poor map-reading skills and no sense of direction, but even in this case, you should really consider switching, if only to train those useful navigation and map-reading skills!

3. Flightradar24

If you’re an avgeek (someone who loves planes and the world of aviation) or simply fly a lot for business or leisure, you can’t get around Flightradar24.

This travel app isn’t just a great tool to see flight routes and do a bit of planespotting, but it can also come in handy when it comes to planning your trip.

This begins by checking the flight number of a flight you’re potentially interested in to see if it reliably operates, as Flightradar24 shows you the history of the last five days, indicating whether the plane departed or arrived on time.

Similarly, it shows you which aircraft type has been used to operate a particular flight.

Although you can also see this information during the booking process on an airline’s website, the fact is that last-minute equipment swaps are common in aviation, and some routes and flights are more prone to this than others.

Checking this is especially important if you want to be assured that the aircraft type promised at the time of booking will likely operate your flight in real-time as well, as seat comfort and layout can vary significantly between plane types.

For example, business class on a Turkish Airlines Boeing 777 has a 2+3+2 configuration, which can be great for couples but less than ideal for solo passengers, while on the Turkish Airlines Airbus A350, the business class cabin has a 1+2+1 configuration offering each seat direct aisle access, making it better for solo passengers.

Seeing that an airline is prone to last-minute equipment changes on the route you’re eyeing could be a factor that might make you decide to book with another company instead, or at least help set expectations straight.

Flightradar24 is also great for checking if your inbound plane is on time or delayed, often giving you an early heads-up about possible delays even before gate agents are aware, though this only really works when flying from an outstation — for example, if you’re flying KLM from Krakow to Amsterdam.

As the inbound flight from Amsterdam will make a turnaround in Krakow to operate the return leg immediately after (unless the plane stays at the outstation overnight), you can track the status of the Amsterdam-Krakow flight if you’re booked to fly from Krakow to Amsterdam, so you’ll know whether it lands on time or is delayed.

Another aspect where Flightradar24 is handy is looking at past flight routes to identify the best side of the plane to sit on if you want the best possible views during take-off and landing from your window seat.

However, you should realise that runways are often used in both directions depending on prevailing winds and other factors, so there is no guarantee your flight will follow a similar flight path.

4. Google Photos

A horror scenario for many travellers is accidentally losing all your camera pictures from your phone if you damage or lose it during your travels, or if it’s stolen.

Although this has fortunately never happened to me, the possibility of losing precious travel pictures is one of my biggest fears, which is why I use Google Photos.

Google Photos is a handy travel app, as it automatically backs up the pictures on your camera roll to the cloud.

It does so each time your phone connects to Wi-Fi, although you can adjust this setting to back up even when roaming on a mobile data connection, which can of course be costly if you travel abroad.

You can also choose whether to back up your pictures in original quality or in a slightly compressed form if you want to save storage.

If your free storage is full, you can buy extra space in the Google cloud at very reasonable prices, and I pay just under €3 a month for 200 GB.

Another handy aspect of Google Photos is its excellent search function, which is especially useful for me as a travel blogger but should also be helpful for the average traveller.

If I type in “Vienna”, Google Photos will display all the pictures I’ve ever taken in the Austrian capital, just as typing “beer” will bring up all the photos featuring a beer.

This is enormously useful when searching for a specific picture, whether it’s a British Airways plane or a shot with palm trees, as it spares me from manually browsing through my archive of hundreds of thousands of pictures.

5. Untappd/Vivino

To me, travel always means enjoying good food and drinks while abroad, and this includes tasting the local wines and (craft) beer.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with trying a random beer or wine, but at times, you want to make sure a drink matches your taste and is of good quality.

Untappd (for beer) and Vivino (for wine) are two great apps that can help you make an educated decision about which beers and wines are worth ordering at a bar or buying at a supermarket.

Although Untappd and Vivino aren’t specifically travel apps, they work best when you’re travelling abroad, as most people have a better knowledge of the quality of beer brands and wine labels in their own country than in foreign destinations.

Among other features, these apps allow you to see the average rating a beer or bottle of wine receives from users, offer the chance to rate them yourself, and provide tasting notes.

6. Shazam

I’ve written before that travel and music are intrinsically linked in many different ways.

Not only do we all enjoy listening to our favourite music while travelling, but avid travellers are also always eager to discover new music styles, singers, and bands from foreign countries.

A particular song or piece of music, whether it’s one you’ve known before or discover during your travels, can bring back strong memories of a particular travel moment or destination.

If you hear some great music during your travels but have no idea what the song title or artist is, Shazam can help you identify it.

You just open the app on your phone while the song is playing, record a snapshot of it, and Shazam will tell you the name and artist of the song.

It’s no problem if you’re temporarily not connected to the internet, as Shazam can still record the song even while you’re not roaming on mobile data or signed onto a Wi-Fi network, and when you have internet access later, it will crosscheck it with its vast database to provide the song title and artist.

Shazam has helped me identify songs in languages as diverse as Portuguese, Greek, French, Georgian, Polish, and even instrumental tracks, and it works great as long as you can get a clean sample with as little background noise and voices as possible.

Conclusion

Travel apps can make your trip abroad much easier, whether they assist with translations, navigation, or managing your travel photos.

The six apps I frequently use on my travels include Google Lens, which is especially useful for translating text, such as scanning a menu in a foreign language at a restaurant to translate it into English, and it can even identify objects in your travel photos, or their exact location.

For your travel snaps, Google Photos is invaluable for backing up your phone’s camera roll and ensuring no pictures get lost, while navigational aids and mapping tools like Mapy and OsmAnd work much better than Google Maps or Apple Maps, especially when you’re away from larger urban centres or plan to go hiking.

Flightradar24 is invaluable for frequent flyers, while anyone who loves a drink should have Untappd for beer or Vivino for wine installed on their phone to find the best quality tipple in a bar or supermarket abroad.

Although not strictly a travel app, Shazam is great for identifying songs you hear on your travels.

What’s your favourite travel app? Feel free to leave a comment and share it with us!