Using your smartphone as a virtual travel buddy can make getting around much easier and more efficient. Your smartphone can be everything from your entertainment to your itinerary to your map to the stars (in the sky that is). Find out how to use your smartphone for smooth sailing after the jump.
Before You Go
- List It Out: Get a good to-do list app like Evernote (you might want to check out our 6 Tips for Planning a Perfect Trip Using Evernote), to get your 'before you leave' list organized and under control.
- Pack It: With apps like Packing Pro, you can list off and mark off what you need to bring, and then save the list for next time.
- Itinerary: I always forward my travel confirmations to TripIt so I have all my tines, dates and confirmation numbers in one place and ready to go.
- Flight Trackers: Using Flight Tracker to see if your plane is on time is really helpful and takes the stress off a bit. You can also get an app for your specific airline carrier and check in as well.
During Your Travel
- Free Wi-Fi: Download Wi-Fi Finder so you are able to stay connected when you need to. This is especially important for international travel and non-3G iPad travel.
- E-reader: Load up your E-reader with books and magazines for the drive, flight and wait times. Don't forget you can take out e-reader books from your library.
- iTunes: Get all of your music, audiobooks, movies and podcasts downloaded and ready to go to keep you entertained on the way to your destination.
- Game Time: Download a few games that will keep you occupied on a long flight or drive. If you are going to be with other people, get some trivia to play on your travel.
At Your Destination
- Hotel Help: Hotels.com, Priceline or Hotwire will help you find or change hotels on the road at a good price.
- Transportation: Make sure you are stocked with a good GPS app, public transportation (bus, subway or train) app, and bike routes and taxi apps for your destination so you can feel confident getting around in any situation you may find yourself in.
- Head In The Stars: If you are out in the wilderness or on the other side of the world and want to discover the the new sky above your head, grab an app like Star Gazer to map out and explain the twinkiling night sky.
- Hot or Cold:Have a weather app to keep you updated so you don't find yourself stuck soaking wet without an umbrella.
- Restaurant Reviews: Sampling the local food is always a great part of any vacation, so make sure you have an app that reviews and maps out what you're looking for. Yelp and Chef's Feed (available for iOS, Android coming soon) can help get you on your way.
- Language Translators: If you will be leaving the country, grab a language translating app like Google Translate to help you beat the barriers.
- Money Matters: A currency convertor like Globe Convert should help keep your budget on track.
How has your smartphone changed your traveling? Have any other tips to add to the list?
(Image: Shutterstock)
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I left my phone off the whole time I was out of the country because I'd heard horror stories about searching/ roaming. Is this an issue, or did I lose functionality for nothing?
Regardless, it was amazing to have conversations without anyone looking things up before a discussion could come to fruition, and I'm happily less tethered to it than I was before the trip. :)
Enable Wi-Fi only to avoid charges.
And TripIt is the best! I put all my plans in there - even has space for notes, so if someone's house is tricky to get to you can paste in their directions.
Urbantree123: you could have just switched off the 3G/4G aspect of your phone and used wireless functionality.
So your only recommended apps are for iphone/ipad/itouch? What about the android apps?
Im not sure if this one counts, but I find google maps / street view extremely helpful in planning excursions and holidays BEFORE I leave. Street view is is great for having a peak around, and familiarising yourself with the area. I even use it to narrow down accomodation. (You can see what it looks like, how far it is from the city centre, etc) I love maps anyway and Im a visual person, so I love preparing like this.
It's a pretty simple one, but try this: when you rent a car, take photos of the car, including the license plate. I find I'm always forgetting what our rental looks like and what the license number is! This is also a good way to record any scratches or dings at the time of rental.
These are great tips, and point to how useful the phone can be while travelling, but sometimes, 'old school' is still necessary: when I was in central Europe last year, I brought a paper map of Prague and found all the young travellers in the vicinity of my seat were asking to use it--sometimes it's just much easier to navigate where you are on a larger scale.
Also, remember that with all this information on your phone, you're making it immensely invaluable, while making you more vulnerable if it gets stolen. I've a couple of friends whose phones were stolen, one right out of his hand as he was talking on it, in Venezuala. So be smart about using your smartphone, too. If a thief knows where you're staying, what your every move is going to be, etc, it's not a very comfortable feeling after the phone gets stolen, not to mention opening oneself up to identity theft.
Just be savvy and cautious, not alarmist...
My husband and I recently spent 3 weeks in Europe. He's a techie and researched this issue quite a bit. It is recommended to take the SIM card out of your smartphone. This will absolutely avoid the roaming/auto update fees associated with using your phone since it severs the link to your phone carrier. Although I'm not sure you can do this with a iPhone.
Your phone just then becomes like a computer and you can still get access via wi-fi. A special SIM card can be purchased if you really need access everywhere, or many cities will allow you to purchase wi-fi access per a daily rate. There are free public wi-fi spots around but at times it was kind of a pain to find. Hotel lobbies generally had free wi-fi that is stronger than in the rooms, where you may have to also pay for it.
We found having our phone was vital in searching for places and discovering things we wouldn't have known about otherwise. We used Skype if we wanted to make a call back to the states (2-4 cents a minute) and found that making documents and various other apps available offline was key when we were out of wi-fi range. We also highly recommend Trip Advisor and the various apps that each city has for tourists. Trip Advisor has a compass function that uses GPS so no wi-fi is needed, but the great thing is it literally points you in the right direction and tells you how many steps you are away from the location. This saved us many times when we were grumpy and hungry and just needed to eat or use a restroom.
One last thing that I discovered is to download and make available all the books you think you will need offline before you reach Europe. For some reason, Google Play and Amazon Kindle is setup differently there and I had trouble finding/accessing my books. Goggle Play also has many FREE books (academic books) that were very in depth about art, art history, and architecture beyond what was in tour guides. This information really added to our experience since there isn't anything quite like relaxing in front of the Trevi Fountain while reading about Roman fountains.
Happy travels!
Great tips. I love my smart phone for traveling. I always save a copy of all itineraries and confirmations etc on my phone, if you are a drop box user you can store important documents right on your phone (no wifi or 3G needed to access them).
However there is no substitute for HARD COPIES of things! I always take 5 minutes to print out simple maps, confirmations for hotels and cars, flight/train/bus itineraries, important phone numbers, addresses etc. Usually I am sending all that information to someone anyway so they know my travel plans so you just hit print on that and you are ready to go. Its worth the time should your battery run out, your connectivity crap out, or your phone gets lost!
When you call your provider, make sure you document what they tell you. The people in customer service don't always give correct advice. ATT told my sigo what to do to avoid charges and we ended up with like $200 due for a few hours in Paris. They were good enough to waive this with the purchase of a plan, but when she got to Africa suddenly her phone started roaming even with roaming turned off. I managed to suspend network service (still allowing wifi) and haggle with ATT about the bill.
I spend a lot of time in England and France. AT&T is really good in that you can add & cancel international services at any time, so that's what I've done. But it's a limited amount and it's not cheap.
However, my last trip was different. I have an old 3GS iphone that I wasn't using. I was able to get it unlocked. When I synced to itunes, all my apps transferred seamlessly.
When I got to the UK, I bought a PAYG sim card with data plan for £10. It was fantastic. And I highly recommend it to anyone who happens to have an old iphone lying around.
Paper copies are unnecessary. Save copies to iBooks on an iPhone or iPad and have copies of everything you need.
Put your iPhone into Airplane mode and you are fine. Keep location services on - it works off cell tower locations and is free.
Stay in cheaper hotels - most have good free wifi everywhere in the world except America.
@MONA D
no, most of those are for droid