Smartphones and mobile devices have become our shadows: we are always connected – provided that data and WiFi don’t let us down. 

And as these paraphernalia are constantly being improved to best assist us in our everyday lives, it comes to no surprise that even travelling and planning our travels has been included in the digital transformation.

Look at the travel apps: applications that can be downloaded and installed onto our mobile devices to help us do any sorts of things: from completing searches and transactions to making our waiting time at the airport more pleasant. 

We’ve identified 5  best travel apps that you might find useful:

Hopper

“Hopper predicts prices and helps you book your flights and hotels at the right time, saving you up to 40%”. It’s only available as a mobile app.

There are other online travel agencies or metasearch engines that would perform the same task and find cheap tickets: Momondo, Google Flights, Skyscanner, just to name a few. 

If you don’t trust booking your flights through an app, you can just use it to monitor the prices and predict when’s the best time to buy.

Google Maps

It seems silly to mention it at all but Google Maps can help you navigate a city with confidence. If you’re on the road and connected to the web, it provides live traffic data and alternative routes, as well as detailed instructions on how to get to your destination (with translations of foreign names and pictures taken from Google Street View to help your navigation).

There are a few useful features found on the app: for instance you can share your live location with friends and family if needed, create your own personalised map, explore the area around you (to do so, activate your GPS).

Another great option we always take advantage of is the possibility to download maps for future offline access: this is really convenient especially if you can’t access your data or can’t connect to a WiFi. 

On the search bar, click on the three dots or on your Google account. Click on “select your own map”. Select the area you’d like to download: you can move the rectangle on the screen to select a wider or a narrower area. Click on “download”. The map will appear on the previous screen under the voice “downloaded maps”. 

We’re partial to Google Maps but we’ve heard positive reviews on Waze, as well. Go check it out.

City Mapper

Another great tool for travellers, City Mapper is particularly useful if you have to use public transports. It will guide you with step-by-step instructions to the nearest bus or train station; it will present you with the fastest routes and the emptiest carriages so that you can enjoy a quick and comfortable journey.

All Trails

“AllTrails helps people explore the outdoors with the largest collection of detailed, hand-curated trail maps as well as trail reviews and photos crowdsourced from a community of 10 million registered hikers, mountain bikers and trail runners.”

AirBnB

One of the best known and most used app to find an accommodation literally everywhere in the world, from a big city to a secluded village, AirBnb is the ideal choice if you look for an authentic travel experience. Thanks to its short-term private rental system, you can live like the locals.

These are just five of the many apps you could have readily at hand to cover all your needs and interests, from the most important  to the most trivial. Travel+Leisure has compiled an exhaustive list of 23 best travel apps.