The best apps for traveling

The idea of going on vacation is that you leave everything from home behind and completely surrender to the place where you are. I truly agree with that, but I don't understand people who can go on vacation without a smartphone. Seriously, my iPhone is glued to my hand and even more so when traveling, and for the following reasons.

Photos

To start with the most obvious. Especially with the new iPhone 6s, you take razor-sharp photos that can compete with most digital cameras. And now you don't have to drag both a camera and a phone, so that's a win-win.

Booking Now

I always like to outline the big lines before a trip, but I prefer to leave as many details open as possible to decide at the last moment. You never know who you might meet and with whom you might want to continue traveling, or maybe you planned to go to place X but hear from everyone that it's terrible there. In short, a bit of spontaneity makes things even more fun. Enter: Booking Now. This app checks where you are and immediately shows you which hotels or hostels nearby still have availability. So you don't have to walk all over the city first.

Tripit

Next to Booking Now, my other favorite travel app. This app collects all the reservations you make and shows them to you in chronological order – from flight tickets to hotel bookings. No more searching through your email for that one ticket and no more traveling with printed confirmations.

uber

People always think that Uber is very expensive, but that's not always the case, especially if you choose Uber Pop. The big advantage of Uber over a regular taxi is that Uber can't rip you off, because the route taken is neatly sent to your email. The classic endlessly long detours that taxi drivers sometimes take with unsuspecting tourists are thus a thing of the past.

Citymapper

All the major cities with a metro network are included here. You enter your location and your desired destination, and the app spits out the best route for you. You can indicate whether you want to go only by metro or only by bus, it shows which options are ‘rain safe’ and if you decide to walk or bike, it tells you how many calories you will burn.

Google Translate

In Brazil, I sat for a good three hours at a police station in a tiny village called Paraty to report a theft. The policeman spoke absolutely no English, I spoke no Portuguese, so between us was my phone with Google Translate on it, and we could still communicate quite a bit. Seriously, this app is going to be your salvation.

Currency Converter

I always have the idea that foreign money doesn't count, I always forget the name of the currency and thus call everything ‘wokkels’, borrowed from my parents who always did that too. But sometimes you need to know how many wokkels you get for your euro, and that's what a currency converter is for. There are dozens in the App Store and most work offline.