Ready for your summer holiday? Who isn’t? Researching, planning, and booking can, for many, be as much fun as the actual vacation itself. The anticipation, the build-up of excitement, and no opportunity yet for lost luggage, wet weather, or “gastric difficulty.” Regardless of careful planning, once you get there you may need new things to do, places to see, treasures to find. Turns out your iPhone or iPad can be your best travel companion, getting you into places and out of jams. Follow along and you’ll be well on your way to the best vacation ever.
From the practicalities of finding flights and hotels to the vagaries of knowing and adhering to local customs, these apps will ensure you’re fully prepared for the trip before you leave.
This travel site has consolidated a ton of information, pulling data from flight, hotel, and car rental sites, to become one of the most effective search tools for travelers you can find. The app brings it all together in a very well-organized package. Aside from simple flight information and status details, you can find hotel rooms and car rental deals. This basic coverage is supplemented by handy travel tools like a quick currency converter and even a packing list to help keep all your travel planning in one handy spot. Oh, and it’s free, which means browsing it during a work lull to daydream about the perfect getaway won’t cost you a penny.
Kayak 17.1.1
Kayak
kayak.com
Free
If your travel plans are vital to your business—or even if you just take your entertainment flight-planning very seriously—the FlightTrack Pro app will provide everything you need (and probably snippets of data you never knew you wanted). Covering airports around the globe (some 4,000, apparently) it provides real-time updates on weather delays, cancellations, and schedules. Of course, all this data can be pushed to your iPhone if you’re in a meeting and can’t be checking all the time. It’s also most effective to sync with your TripIt online travel itinerary (tripit.com), so that all your details are housed in one place and synced efficiently. Knowing what’s going on with all legs of your travel plans is likely a crucial step for organized vacationers or business travelers, so this app stands out as the best of the flight-tracking bunch.
FlightTrack Pro 4.0.2
Mobiata
mobiata.com
$9.99
Passport? Check. iPhone? Check. Downloaded offline apps, music, and videos for the flight? Er, do I? Any traveler knows that preparing for a trip is stressful, whether it’s remembering your boarding pass, the kids’ toys, putting your mail on hold, or booking the dog’s hotel, the list can be long and convoluted. Packing’s sample lists are a great starter to get your travel planning underway. It’s neatly organized and lets you edit to suit your personal or family needs, and save out those lists for later use. Getting down to details like actual weights of each individual item (if you can find them) can help manage expectations of those pesky baggage fees.
Packing 8.2
QuinnScape
www.quinnscape.com
$0.99
Whether Bill Shatner makes you laugh, cry, or cringe, he’s become synonymous with the last-minute hotel-booking site. What that means here is having to see him as the Priceline app’s icon, and throughout the app menus in various capacities. If you’re still on board, then this is a great way to find last-minute bargains wherever you are. Its immediacy is the key selling point, and tying into the iPhone GPS functionality, you can even browse available nearby hotels. Bids and bookings are handled similarly to the web site, meaning you can often find a great deal. It’s not always perfect, and the results of this blind booking mechanism don’t always gel with a user’s hopes and expectations, but in a pinch, you can’t go wrong. A recent update added the car rental option that includes deals directly through the app that aren’t available online.
Priceline 4.0
Priceline
priceline.com
Free
That exotic vacation destination sounds so appealing…. Your business travel is taking you to a conference in a country you had to look up on a map…. Whether adventure or need, traveling to foreign countries introduces many potentially stressful situations. What’s the etiquette for exchanging business cards in Japan? Is a visa required? If I look someone in the eye, is it considered offensive? Be they taboos, local laws, even simple information like the legal drinking age, having all the information about the country you’re visiting in one place could be considered potentially life-saving. This app provides most of the core information you need to ensure smooth interactions with locals around the world (like, did you know that in Kiribati, it’s unacceptable for young children to look an adult directly in the eyes, even when being talked to? Just in case you find yourself in Kiribati with small children!). An add-on pack of international phrases to help your communication in 16 different countries costs $2.99. Not every country in the world is covered, though if you visit one of those (like Qatar, if you’re scouting a World Cup 2022 visit), you can email details for each section and have them included in the guide.
World Customs & Cultures 2.2
Hooked in Motion
hookedinmotion.com
Free
