Holiday travel doesn’t have to be a headache. In fact, when you download the right apps, you can roam a new destination with speed and confidence. Here are just a few great travel apps for things like packing, finding hotels and restaurants, and breezing through the airport.
For Packing Efficiency: OneBag
Have you ever flown out to visit grandma only to realize that you forgot her present on your dining room table? With OneBag, you can avoid these “d’oh” moments, especially during the mad rush of holiday travel. The app will let you create packing lists with all kinds of customization options for maximum organizational efficiency. You can group items together in different categories; you can calculate baggage weights to avoid extra fees at the airport. You can even auto-generate packing lists based on things like the predicated weather patterns of your destination. You’ll remember grandma’s present and your heavy jacket!
To Check Your Flight Status: FLIO
For Navigating Public Transit: Moovit
To Find Hidden Gems: Like A Local
It’s always better to rely on local advice when looking for shops, hotels, and restaurants in a new city And Like A Local makes it easy to tap into that community-based knowledge even if you don’t know a soul. It’s basically a digital travel guide, but its database is maintained by residents of the area, so you’re only getting real, authentic suggestions rather than ads and corporate sponsors. The app also offers other travel perks like maps, customer reviews and photos, and self-updating recommendations based on your current location. Another major benefit of Like A Local is that its travel guides can be downloaded in advance, allowing you to access it even while offline or outside of a Wi-Fi hot spot.
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When You’re Feeling Hungry: Zomato
There’s no shortage of food apps out there, but during the holidays, you’ll need one that you can trust to be accurate. Hours can change; menus can be seasonal. The good news is that Zomato will take the guesswork out of finding a restaurant in a new city. It’s available worldwide, so you can use it in a variety of destinations, and it’ll let you search nearby eating establishments by name, cuisine, price range, customer ratings, and the availability of specific dishes. Once you’ve selected a potential restaurant, you can access everything from menus to directions to make sure that it’s the right place for you. There are even user-submitted photos that you can browse to make your mouth water while you wait!
To Avoid Tipping Awkwardness: GlobeTips
Did you know that there are countries where it’s considered rude to tip? To avoid these kinds of cultural misunderstandings, you’ll need an app like GlobeTips. It offers written tipping guides for almost 250 countries, and it also comes equipped with tools to help you properly tip in destinations where it is good etiquette. There’s a currency converter, a tipping calculator, and a digital scanner that’ll read your bill and work out different tipping percentages. You can use the app for a solo lunch or to divide a sum for separate parties at a large Christmas dinner. No matter where you’re headed this holiday season, you can make sure that you’re paying it forward while you’re visiting.
Last but not least, check out our own travel app! OneTravel can help you find cheap flights, hotels, rental cars, and more. We offer mobile-exclusive deals to keep money in your pocket as you make travel plans, and we also have a rewards program to earn points for future trips. If you’re looking for resources to plan your dream getaway, download OneTravel!
Do you have a favorite travel app that you rely on? Let us know in the comments below!