My essential apps for travel and how I use them

With a supercomputer in your pocket, you'd be foolish not to use its powers to better your travel experience. I try not to spend too much time on my screen when I travel, and these are the app I use to make my trip more enjoyable.

Maps

• Google Maps, I download the offline maps for the area you'll be staying
• Maps.me as a backup, I download the whole country I'll be visiting. Really good for hiking.
• I mark my accommodations and points of interest on the map (usually only on Google maps) beforehand.

Transportation

• Waze depending on the country
• Google maps to find my own way around
• Citymapper for public transport in big cities
• Uber in many places (London, Mexico, USA..)
• Grab in South East Asia (Philippines, Thailand..)
• Bolt in some markets (Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia)

Accommodation

• Airbnb, although it's getting really expensive now.
• Booking.com, it's usually cheaper to book with the mobile app.
• Agoda in South East Asia.

Organization

• Default clock and timer on your phone: I'm always setting alarms and using timers (for cooking, the laundry, calling back someone
• Google Calendar: every event goes straight on the calendar, with a comment, and the location, and is shared with whoever is concerned. I also join a copy of the important documents as well (like airplane tickets).  Make sure you enter the correct time zone!
• Especially after a long flight, it’s really nice to have all the events synced up and at the correct time. You can ask Google calendar to ping you before the event.

Language

• Google translate offline mode for English  <~> language of my choice. If the alphabet is different, I will also use offline image recognition. Really useful in China for example, where I would not have been able to type most characters.
• DeepL when I want to write an email about a more complex topic.

Money

• Apple Pay with my cards
• Banking apps, just make sure it asks for your passport after a couple of minutes.
• See my article here

Air travel

• I usually use the airline app, to easily access my tickets.
• Apple wallet, I download my tickets in the wallet format, for easy access.
• I also put offline copies of my tickets on my drive.

Online storage and backups

• Google Drive, with a dedicated folder with pictures of all the important documents, bookings, and plane tickets. This folder should be downloaded on your phone and available offline. Do that before you leave.
• Photos (as a backup): I take pictures of all the important stuff when traveling: my visa  and stamps when I received them in my passport, receipt from the hotel, and any signed document… in case I lose them I have a backup

Note-taking

• Note or Keep or whatever really basic writing app comes with your phone.

Diving logbook

• Subsurface for a digital diving logbook. Free and Open Source.
• Garmin Dive, for my Garmin dive computer.

Entertainment

• Kindle app, so I can always read my books.
• Netflix, and I download movies beforehand. You can also cast on most modern TVs.
• Same with Prime Video, you can also cast on most modern TVs.
• YouTube, but I don’t have YouTube Red, so only when wifi is available.
• Podcast app
• Spotify

Weather forecast

• the basic iPhone weather app
• I also like Windy for visualizing the forecast.

Communications

• WhatsApp, most countries in the world use it, it's free and works really well.
• Messenger (from Facebook): super useful in Spain or the Philippines
• Skype. I have a Skype number where I put 10£ worth of credit years ago. I use it anytime I need to call an actual phone number abroad. It works with any number everywhere, as long as you have internet. It’s extremely useful.

Security

• I usually get a VPN when I travel and I know I’ll be using some wifi. The last time I got Mullvad VPN, it was affordable, worked well, and is private.
• I use Bitwarden for my passport management. You should use a password manager to make sure you create truly random long passwords for every service you use