The beginning of June is here, which means it’s time to start making summer travel plans (if you haven’t already). Experienced travelers know that before you embark on your journey, it’s essential to make a checklist of things you will need along the way. Whether it’s a map, an itinerary, music, reading material, or a camera, check-listing those items in 2014 means visiting the app store on your iPhone. Here are our must-have iPhone apps for you world travelers and road-trippers.
An essential app for traveling in the car. Google Maps obviously helps you navigate your way from point A to point B, but it also can assist you in finding nearby restaurants and sights to see. Traffic accidents and backups are bound to occur on road trips but Google Maps makes it easier to prepare or re-route yourself with real-time traffic information.
Have you ever traveled on the highway and stopped for gas only to find that at the next exit it was 20 cents cheaper? Save up those pennies by using Gas Buddy. When you open the app, it lists all the nearby gas stations and their respective prices.
Download your favorite albums and playlists for offline listening or stream those tunes if you’re out of storage space on your phone. Similar to Pandora and Spotify, build your own custom radio stations, listen to the bands you love, and discover new ones. What’s a road trip without music, anyways?
Kayak is essentially a search engine for travelers. Find flights, book hotels, and rent cars all in one place. This is an essential app to have in the planning stages of your trip. After you make all your reservations, you can stay organized by viewing your trip agenda and tracking your flights.
Stop spending time searching for various restaurants and calling them to make reservations. You now have options listed in one place and filtered by your preferences with OpenTable. Once you browse through those options, you can view available table times and with the click of a button have a table reserved. OpenTable lists restaurants in the U.S, Canada, and Mexico.
What good is eating at an awesome restaurant if you can’t take a picture of your food and share it on Instagram? Catalogue your entire vacation with photos and short videos and share them with your friends. Come on, 200 million people are doing it.
This app is exactly what it sounds like and will be very handy for those traveling abroad. Type in a word and the app can translate it into 80 different languages. Before your trip, make sure to bookmark certain translations for easy offline access.
Whether you’re on a plane or riding in the car, Flipboard will keep you up to date and informed for hours. This visually pleasing and easy-to-use app allows you to keep all your favorite magazines, news sources, and social sites in one place. Navigate and browse through your interests and discover new ones by simply tapping the tiles and flipping through them.
You will use this on your trip every morning and throughout the day. The latest upgrade to this app allows you to scroll through hourly weather updates, forecasts, news, a pollen index, flu reports, airport conditions and more with ease.
And if you mistakenly lose all of this information during your travels, make sure to download this app on another iOS device. When you sign in using your Apple ID, your lost phone will not only be found on a map, but it will be remotely locked and signaled by playing a sound. Download Find My iPhone on all the devices you own and your traveling companions.
