Travel apps are an essential part of your overseas travel adventure these days. You’re always on the lookout for new apps to take travelling with you, right? I’ve compiled a list of my top 10 travel apps for 2017, which have all been rigorously road tested in 2017 on my overseas travels. Hopefully you will find some new ideas for best travel apps to make your next adventure just that little bit more rewarding.

My travel usually involves 2-3 week overseas trips with my family. I like to think of myself as reasonably tech savvy, and always ensure my trusty iPhone is armed with a local SIM card and internet access. On our recent family holidays to Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and USA, these are the apps which I found most valuable for our travel experience. I am not saying they are the best out there, but they are the most useful travel apps on my iPhone right now.

I’ve broken the list into two groups

• Essential apps are used multiple times daily and live on my home screen.
• Non essential apps are used less frequently but definitely get used each holiday.

Essential Travel Apps

XE currency converter

Invaluable for quickly converting that souvenir or taxi fare into your home currency to make sure you’re not getting ripped off. This app greatly assists your bargaining power to make quick decisions, which is such an important part of travelling in South-East Asia.

Google Maps

Two incredibly useful modes in Google Maps are walk mode and public transport mode. Walk mode is fantastic for exploring on foot in unfamiliar foreign cities, especially when the signage is in another language. Public transport mode is awesome for navigating big public transport networks, and it will even calculate fare costs for you.

Trip Advisor

Looking for activities to do in your new holiday location? Trip Advisor is the most universal app for finding all the best activities to do in virtually any area on the globe. When you enter a new region you can quickly look up the top attractions and read other traveller reviews to decide which attractions you want to visit. It can even be used to search dining, hotels and airfares.  

Bankivity

If you’re anything like me it’s important to closely track your travel expenditure, not only to know how much you spent but to enable you to build a solid budget for your next holiday. On Bankivity you can quickly log an expense on your iPhone, which then syncs back to your main accounting budget on your home computer. It only takes a few seconds to log an expense and comes in super handy for dining out, groceries, taxis, buses, souvenir shopping, etc.

Photos

I just love having 1TB of icloud photo storage and being able to synchronise all our family photos into a single location. It’s not uncommon for us to take several hundred photos on a day tour from our Iphones, DSLR, Coolpix and Go-pro. The Photos app magically combines them into a single location in the cloud, and then using your hotel wi-fi you can easily share any of your family photos on social media.

Social Media apps – Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Google+

Part of travelling these days is to share your adventures as they happen, it’s great to have all these social apps on your front screen. Especially now Instagram live and Facebook live are becoming so popular and easy to use. Also great when waiting for public transport.

Messenger

This is now the go-to app for keeping in touch with family and friends back home. Making free video calls to the other side of your world on free hotel wi-fi is almost an essential part of overseas travel these days.

Non-essential apps

Dropbox and iCloud Drive

Your little computer in the sky with important documents like hotel bookings and itineraries. These apps offer peace of mind just in case you lose your hard copies or your phone.

Tripit

It’s important to know exactly when your next flight is so you can organise airport transfers and hotels, and Tripit is the number one app for this. Your can quickly enter all your flights many months in advance which makes trip planning so much easier. If your want you can also enter accommodation and ground transport. Personally I have never found the need to do this.

Spotify

Nothing like chilling out back at the hotel room after a long day of touring, listening to your favourite tunes through your bluetooth speaker whilst you do some quality net surfing, social media or game play. Spotify makes chilling out so much more enjoyable.

Skyscanner

When researching your next flight Skyscanner makes it so much easier. You can and will find some seriously cheap bargains using this app and it’s so fast to use. Great for comparing different itineraries for your next trip.

New Possibilities for Travel Apps

There you have it, my top 10 travel apps for 2017. I hope you discovered a new app which will enhance your next overseas travel adventure. Let me know if you have any more app suggestions, I am always open to exploring new possibilities!

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