Six essential apps for frequent travelers
If you travel more than a couple of times a year, you no doubt have a collection of apps that you can't live without. They might be functional, like a great booking service, or entertainment, like a streaming music app.
Those are great, of course, but nothing can make travel more pleasant (or at least tolerable) than the right mix of apps designed to streamline the most frustrating aspects of travel to another city. These six just might change your attitude about your next red-eye.
TripIt. First, nothing is more important than a solid itinerary manager. The days of entering your flight information into Outlook are long gone, TripIt handles all the details as well as a personal assistant. Just forward your flight and hotel itinerary to a TripIt email address, and all the details show up in your account automatically.
The app makes it easy to look up your travel details on the go, and it updates you with real-time flight status updates, gate changes and more. It's free, but the premium version (for $50/year) throws in additional benefits, like notifications that you can upgrade to a better seat.
SeatGuru. SeatGuru is a long-time traveler favorite. You can use it to see the layout of your plane and choose the best seat. Click on any seat to see exactly what you're in for if you sit there. You'll know if the seat has power or TV, whether it reclines or backs into a bulkhead. how much legroom is available and even if it's next to a window.
A few caveats, though: Often, you'll need to know the specific plane you're flying on, which means you'll have to look that info up. And the smartphone app isn't nearly as useful as the website, thanks to a buggy interface that doesn't let you back up to the main menu once you've drilled into an option like a seat map.
GateGuru. Another app that promises to serve as a travel guide, GateGuru provides a wealth of handy details on your phone that are all but impossible to get any other way. Plug in your flight, for example, and you can see amenities in your terminal, along with detailed maps of the terminal's interior. The app also crowdsources travel tips, so you can read advice and anecdotes from fellow travelers.
Curb. When you get to your destination, you might have a rental car waiting for you. Or you might need to rely on the services of others. Uber isn't available everywhere, so you should also install an app that you can use to summon traditional taxi cabs. Curb (formerly known as Taxi Magic) hits the spot.
It knows where you are, and you can use it to call a cab based on your current GPS location or another one that you select from a map. You can do this to get a cab right now or schedule a later pickup. The app also stores your credit card info, so you can pay via phone.
Yelp. You can use lots of apps to find a meal in a strange city, but Yelp remains the most reliable option. You have plenty of ways to narrow your search, and a wealth of crowdsourced reviews and photos give you a relatively good idea of what your choice will entail. Yelp also tells you tons of important details like noise level, ambiance, if the establishment takes credit cards and hours of operation.
Wi-Fi Finder. Finally, Wi-Fi is a precious commodity when you're away from home. Whether you need more bandwidth than your cellular service offers or you're traveling internationally and want to find hotspots to avoid expensive roaming charges, Wi-Fi Finder is a smartphone app that can zero in on free and pay Wi-Fi pretty much anywhere in the world. It even has an option to install an offline version of the Wi-Fi database so you can search when you have no Internet access.
Photo courtesy of GateGuru.
