The iPhone makes everything in life better. Traveling is no exception. The one thing I cannot travel without is my iPhone and an arsenal of (mostly free) apps that help me live it up like a local no matter where I go.
Well, that and clean underwear.
The right app can help you find a restaurant, catch the right train, score great tickets and even find your parking spot. Of course the choices can be overwhelming, and the wrong app can leave you standing on a subway platform waiting for a train that doesn’t run on the weekends. Doing your research ahead of time is crucial to a successful iPhone vacation.
The Top iPhone Apps for Travelers
7 iphone apps to download, sync, and play with before your next trip:
Flight Track Pro – $9.99
Before you even leave home, this travel app will tell you if your flight is on time, delayed or canceled. It integrates with TripIt, allowing you to email your itinerary confirmation to a specific address and then automatically save your flight itineraries to the app. The biggest downfall of this app is the price. At $9.99, it’s definitely targeted to frequent travelers.
For a less expensive option, Flight Status is available for $4.99 (iTunes store link), but reviewers complain it isn’t nearly as reliable in announcing early arrivals as Flight Tracker Pro. I suppose you get what you pay for here.
The Weather Channel – FREE
Whether you’re deciding what to pack or figuring out if you can leave your umbrella in your hotel room for the afternoon, the best travelers know to keep a close eye on the weather. Yes, the iPhone comes with a built in weather app. But adding locations can be cumbersome and you’re limited to current temperature and expected highs and lows.
The Weather Channel app lets you instantly get the weather forecast for your current location or add another location with a few taps on the keypad. You can get an hour by hour forecast or a full ten day picture of what you can expect while traveling. The Weather Channel app even alerts you to any severe weather alerts in the area – perfect for travelers who don’t spend their vacations glued to the hotel room TV.
SimulTravel GPS – $0.99
This app is made for the spontaneous traveler or the business person who never knows how long they’ll be on the road. Brought to you by the people at Priceline, this iPhone app will show you the hotels available around you or in a destination of your choice for that night. Get hotel locations, rates and reviews as well as tap-to-call contact information to make your reservations. The app will not give pricing from 11pm-midnight EST while it performs daily maintenance.
UrbanSpoon – FREE
If you have an iPhone, you should have this free app no matter how much you travel. It becomes an especially valuable tool when you’re looking for a place to eat in a new city. Simply shake your iPhone and get a list of restaurants organized by nearby city, cuisine type and price point.
One word of caution before relying on this app for traveling – check the available cities. Not all cities in the US are covered (although I have yet to find myself stranded and hungry).
Taxi Magic – FREE
Call a cab, track the cab, and pay for your cab ride, all from your iPhone. This free iPhone app is perfect if you’re traveling in a big city. Of course, the cab company on the other end has to be participating in the “magic booking” system, but you’ll find plenty of options for that in most major cities. If the taxing companies don’t offer magic booking, you’ll still get a list of nearby companies and numbers to call.
Take Me To My Car – FREE
Never forget where you parked again. When I’m parking in a large lot in my hometown, I just snap a picture with my iPhone of the “A6″ sign or some nearby landmark to remind myself later where I’m at. But when I’m traveling in an unfamiliar city and leaving my car to walk around for hours, those pictures mean nothing to me. I wish I would have known about this app before I spent 30 minutes wandering around Charleston looking for “that big cement parking garage that I swear was right around here somewhere.”
Why not just use Google Maps on your phone? This app lets you drop a flag and save it for later and it gives you walking directions as opposed to driving directions. Plus, the location markers are more detailed than the big blue circle (especially if you’re on a 3G iPhone).
A few reviewers have complained that there wasn’t a spot for marking down the “A6″ type notes – to which I would say it’s free and you can still take a picture to find the exact spot once you’ve tracked down the basic location.
I’m anticipating using this app a lot on my future trips to walking cities (like New York City and Chicago) to help me get back to my hotel and other Meet Back Here In One Hour locations.
iTrans NYC Subway – $4.99 (Or something like it!)
OK, so this app will only work if you happen to be traveling to New York City. Duh. But, I included it anyway to illustrate that a) this is the best NYC Subway app available of the ones I tried b) you should get yourself a public transportation app before you travel to a major city.
I resisted buying this app on my first trip to New York City because it was $4.99. I am an idiot. This application saved me hundreds of dollars in cab fare and countless hours standing on a street corner asking “well, um, how should we get there?” Not only that, but I felt much safer navigating the subway system with the confidence that I actually knew where I was going.
I’m a big proponent of taking advantage of public transportation when you travel in order to cut down on your expenses and get a taste of city life as a local. Of course, I’m a bigger advocate of this if it is not, say 4 am and you’ve been drinking. Safety first and all that.
When searching the iTunes store for an app for the city of your choice, look for applications that will provide some functionality underground (without internet or cell coverage). Also watch for easy to read maps and reviews discussing accuracy and crash frequency.
I’m always on the look out for iPhone apps that make traveling easier. Do you know of any I missed? How do you use your iPhone while you travel?
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20 Responses
I love my iPhone. This is a great post.
Thanks Whit!
[...] If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!I recently wrote a post for UpTake that featured top iPhone apps for travelers. [...]
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I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and recommend iBART. It’s free and it gives you Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART schedules) Thanks for the list.
Follow me on Twitter @Nancydbrown
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Check out the Snapshot Postcard iphone app! Take a pic with your iphone, choose a contact, add your text, and send. Voila! Your friends and family receive a real postcard within just a few days regardless of where it’s being sent from. Cheaper than stock postcards and postage, easier to execute, and a great personal touch while you’re away. I love it and am getting great feedback from my friends and family when I’m away!
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Our iPhone app – HotelsByMe – http://bit.ly/26m01b was just released on the AppStore. It is great and full service native app that will allow you to find and book hotel properties worldwide from your iPhone or iPod Touch device.
I really like the hotels.com iphone app. it is a much more superior app than some of the other travel apps that have just come out. It also gives you a phone number if you prefer to call and talk to an agent.
Some of the other travel apps look like this app with a different logo…
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For recreational travel, Respotter Wiki is great for looking up stuff around you in Wikipedia. It’s free too!
I have two helpful public transportation applications that I use when traveling to San Francisco and Washington, D.C. iBART and “Ride DC Metro” are great – especially if you are new to the area.
For travelers heading to NYC, there is a great new app called CityRover NY. It’s different from the rest because it combines a lot of cool features, like the best spots to get coffee, food, beer, but also interesting city walks and fun trivia. I used it recently when I was in town with my girlfriend. We answered the trivia questions while riding the subway, took a couple of the guided walks and checked out some of the jazz joints recommended in the app.
There’s a great new app for NYC natives & tourists. It’s called Best Bathroom NYC. It shows your location on GPS and directions to the nearest clean, high quality bathroom (no dirty Starbucks bathrooms with this app!)
Not only does it give you directions to the general location, but it gives you precise directions through the building to the actual bathroom site! This way you can walk through a building lobby casually glancing at your phone instead of awkwardly asking for directions or generally looking creepy and uncertain.
Try it out!
http://itunes.ap…ple.com/us/app/best-bathroom/id413340546
thanks.. I didn’t know there are so many nice apps for iPhone