The Travel Apps We Actually Use

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Getting around

Google Maps 4.77.3M3.218.7M Free

✓We tested the alternatives for years and kept coming back. Download the offline map before you land and it works with no signal.

It does the basics better than anything else we've tried: coverage, reviews, opening hours and transit data almost everywhere on earth. Download the area offline before you fly and you can still navigate with no signal. We haven't found anything that comes close overall.

Citymapper 4.8265k4.8372k Freemium

✓The best public-transport app there is, in the cities it covers.

For metros, buses and trams it beats Google Maps, with live departures and the "rain-safe" and "least walking" routes that Google skips. It only supports a few dozen cities, though. We keep it for transit-heavy trips (Tokyo, London, Paris) and use Google for everywhere else.

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Getting a ride

Uber 4.916.4M4.719.0M Free

✓The one to try first almost anywhere it runs. Price up front, pay in the app, no haggling.

Where Uber works it's the easy choice: you see the fare before you book, pay in-app, and don't have to argue the price or explain where you're going in a language you don't speak. Where it falls down is coverage: it's missing or banned in plenty of places, and even where it runs a local app is often cheaper with more drivers around. We keep it installed and check it first, then switch to whatever rules locally.

Grab 4.7880k4.816.4M Free

✓What Uber is to the rest of the world, Grab is to Southeast Asia. Rides, food and payments in one app.

Across Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and the rest of the region, Grab is the default: fixed prices, in-app payment, and motorbike taxis as well as cars, which are cheaper and cut through traffic. It also does food delivery and holds a payment balance. Uber barely exists here: it sold its Southeast Asia business to Grab back in 2018, so Grab took its place. There are alternatives, like Gojek in Indonesia and Singapore, but Grab is the one to have. It's no use outside the region, so it's a Southeast Asia thing, but there it's close to essential. Which of these two we open just depends on where we've landed, so we keep both installed.

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Keeping track of a trip

Google Maps 4.77.3M3.218.7M Free

✓We tried most of the route-tracker and travel-journal apps out there and ended up just using Google Maps. Again.

As we go, we star the good stuff: the restaurant worth returning to, the viewpoint, the laundrette that actually opened on time. Over a trip that builds a personal map you can pull up in a year and still find. Turn on Timeline and it quietly records where you went each day, so years later you can still remember the name of that tiny restaurant down a back alley. It's private and off by default, so switch it on yourself if you want it. Polarsteps does the prettier travel-journal version and a lot of people swear by it, but for us Google Maps did the job, and it's free and already on the phone.

TripIt 4.8306k4.791k Freemium

✓A good app we leaned on for years. Forward your booking emails and it builds one tidy itinerary. We just drifted back to Google Maps.

Forward your confirmations, or connect your inbox, and TripIt lines up every flight, hotel and booking into a day-by-day plan. It's still the best-known app in this category and plenty of people rely on it daily. We used it for years and still think it's great. These days our flights live in Flighty and everything else in Google Maps, mostly because it's free and it's already where our saved places live. The best bits (real-time flight alerts, seat and gate tracking) sit behind TripIt Pro, so the free version is more of a tidy list than a live assistant.

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Flights

Flighty 4.8140k Freemium

✓The flight tracker we rely on. Open it and it often shows a delay or a gate change before the airline gets round to announcing it.

It tells you which plane you're on, often which baggage carousel to head for, and how likely your flight is to slip. Every new download gets Flighty Pro free on your first flight, so you can see what it does. After that the free tier still tracks your flights and keeps a log of where you've flown, but the handy parts (delay predictions, gate-change push alerts and the live activity on your lock screen) need Pro. We leave the live activity off anyway, because it drains the battery fast. Pro isn't cheap, so it's really only worth it if you fly a lot. Worth knowing: it's iPhone only, so Android users are out of luck.

Kayak 4.8490k4.8401k Free

✓For finding the flight in the first place. We usually end up with the same flights we'd get on Google Flights, but we prefer the interface.

We search flights and hotels on Kayak. Google Flights is just as good and we like it too, but Kayak's layout suits us better. The Explore feature is the fun part: set your home airport and it maps where you can fly direct and for how much, which is how more than one trip has started. It saves your trips as well, similar to Flighty, though Flighty does that part more nicely. It does nudge you off to partner sites to actually book, though, and the hotel results feel like an afterthought next to the flights.

Skyscanner 4.8493k4.81.4M Free

✓The other search we keep around. Strong on budget airlines, and unbeatable when you're flexible on where or when.

Skyscanner casts a wider net than most, including a lot of the budget and regional carriers that Kayak and Google Flights sometimes skip. Its best trick is searching a whole month, or "everywhere" from your home airport, when you don't much care exactly where or when. That's how a few cheap trips have come together for us. One thing to watch: some of its cheapest results hand you off to third-party agents we'd rather avoid, so check who you're actually booking with before you pay.

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Gyms and spas

ClassPass 4.8195k4.022k Paid

✓One subscription that gets you into gyms, classes, spas and more in cities all over the world.

You buy a monthly plan that gives you a pot of credits, scaled to your home currency, and you spend them booking things. It is not only fitness: yoga and gym sessions, yes, but also massages, spas, blow-dries, and in some cities even restaurants. When you're travelling it usually works out far cheaper than paying the drop-in rate at a gym or booking a spa direct. Just remember to cancel at least 12 hours before, or you lose the credits, so don't book on a whim. We use it in pretty much every city we settle in for a while.

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Messaging

WhatsApp 4.718.2M4.6234.4M Free

✓WhatsApp almost everywhere, plus whatever the locals actually use.

WhatsApp is the default across most of the world and the one to have for hosts, drivers and new friends. But some countries run on something else, and you'll want it before you land: LINE in Japan and Thailand, KakaoTalk in South Korea, and WeChat in China, where you'll also lean on it to pay for things. In parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Telegram is surprisingly common too. Install the local one before you leave.

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Language and translation

Google Translate 4.383k4.38.6M Free

✓Download the language before you go and it translates offline. The camera turns menus and signs into English on the spot.

The offline packs are the trick: grab the language at home and you can translate with no data or signal. Point the camera at a menu, a train timetable or a medicine box and it overlays the translation live. Conversation mode handles a back-and-forth with a taxi driver well enough. Offline translations are rougher than the online ones, so expect the odd baffling result, but it still gets you understood almost anywhere.

Google Lens Free

✓We reach for it even more than Translate. Point the camera at anything and it translates, copies, identifies or looks it up.

Aim it at a menu or a sign and it translates in place, usually sharper than Translate's own camera. But it does more: copy the text off a poster straight into your phone, identify a plant or a landmark, or find where to buy the thing in a shop window. On Android it's built in; on iPhone it lives inside the Google app and Google Photos. It does want a connection to do its best work, so it's less useful once you're properly offline.

Duolingo 4.75.3M4.744.8M Freemium

✓Staying somewhere a while? Learn the language. Duolingo makes the daily habit stick, and actually makes it fun.

If you're in one place for more than a couple of weeks, a bit of the local language changes the whole trip. Duolingo's short daily lessons and streaks turn it into a habit you'll actually keep, and the free version is plenty to get going. It won't get you conversational on its own, and the streak reminders can nag. You won't come out fluent, but you'll learn enough to make everyday travel easier.

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Staying connected

Airalo 4.698k4.5170k Paid

✓We've tried a bunch of travel eSIMs and keep coming back to Airalo. Land already online, no SIM-shop hunt and no shock roaming bill.

Buy a data plan for wherever you're going, install it before you fly, and your phone connects the moment you land while your home number keeps working for calls and bank codes. We haven't found another eSIM app with broader coverage, and setup is easy, so it's the first thing we sort before a trip. It's not always the cheapest option, but it's usually the easiest. More in our guide to using your phone abroad, or the full eSIM comparison.

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Money

Wise 4.8166k4.81.9M Free

✓Our favourite app for holding and moving money across currencies. Easy to use, and the card works in almost every country.

Hold and convert dozens of currencies at the going exchange rate, without the foreign exchange markup many banks add, then spend on the Wise card almost anywhere. Opening an account is free and it comes with a debit card available in most countries. It's what we use to move money between currencies without getting overcharged. Customer support can be slow if something goes wrong, so sort any issues before you travel rather than mid-trip. For the full rundown, see our guide to paying abroad.

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Two-factor codes

Google Authenticator 4.91.1M3.8651k Free

✓Where we keep our two-factor codes. It generates them on your phone, so they still work when a text can't reach you abroad.

Two-factor authentication protects your important accounts (email, bank, socials), and an app that generates the codes is safer and more portable than getting them by text. That matters most when you travel: with roaming off or no home signal, an SMS code may never arrive, but an authenticator app generates them on your phone, offline. We keep most of ours in Google Authenticator. It now syncs to your Google account, so a lost phone isn't the lockout it once was, but set it up before you leave and save your account's backup codes somewhere separate, just in case.

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For the flight and the downtime

YouTube Premium 4.748.1M3.9159.2M Paid

✓The one people forget about. No ads, plays in the background, and downloads videos to watch offline.

For a long-haul flight, an offline stack of videos with no ads is worth more than you'd think. Being able to lock the phone and keep the audio playing is the part we didn't expect to love. Download at home on Wi-Fi, not on your travel data. It is pricey for what, on paper, is just no ads, so it earns its keep only if you actually use YouTube a lot.

Netflix 4.76.9M3.913.6M Paid

✓Download a film or a few episodes at home. In-flight entertainment fails more often than it should.

Tap the download button on a couple of things before you leave Wi-Fi and you've got a backup for the flight, the delayed train, or the evening the hotel has one grainy channel. Downloads do expire, and some titles block downloading entirely, so check before you fly rather than at the gate.

Spotify 4.840.9M4.333.8M Freemium

✓Download your playlists and a couple of podcasts. Works on the plane, on the trail, anywhere the signal drops.

Same rule as the others: pull it down at home. Offline playlists and podcasts cover the long bus rides and the dead patches with no signal, and don't touch your data allowance while you're at it. Do note that offline downloads need Premium, so the free tier won't help you once you lose signal.

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Just for fun

Fog of World 4.83.0k3.6569 Paid

✓Turns the map into a video game. Everywhere you go gets uncovered; everywhere you have not stays hidden in fog.

This is a paid app that does nothing useful, which is the whole point. Every street you walk clears the fog on your personal map, so your travels slowly reveal the world. You will never fill it in, that's not possible, but chasing a blank patch is a good reason to turn down a street you'd otherwise skip. It quietly nibbles at your battery tracking you in the background, so it's one to switch off on a long day out. Our favourite way to end up somewhere we weren't planning to go.

The travel apps we actually use.