Traveling The World: There’s An App For That

These days, traveling is becoming more easy and cheap than ever before. Fortunately, the power of mobile devices is rising at least the same rate. This means that no matter what you might need while traveling abroad, there is very likely an app for that. Some examples include the following.

Expenses

Apps like Expensify help you take care of expenses automatically. They have the perhaps somewhat dubious motto of “Expense reports that don’t suck.” but if you’re traveling on a business trip and need to have a clear record of everything that you spend, Expensify can be quite a handy app. Let alone backpacking on a small budget… If you pay for the full subscription, you can actually simply scan receipts and get automatic records and even automatic calculations of total expenses without you having to do anything else.

Currency

If you’re traveling to foreign countries, chances are that you’ll need to exchange currencies at some point. Fortunately, there are a variety of apps that let you calculate conversion rates in order to anticipate beforehand how much cash you’ll need to buy certain things at current exchange rates. These rates fluctuate constantly so it makes sense to put an app on your phone whether it be Android or iPhone that can keep up to date with the rates. This is especially the case if you need to travel somewhere like through Europe where may need to change currencies multiple times. When it comes to one particular currency, it might be easy to find exchange rates and calculate it quickly. But if you’re calculating one currency into another over and over you will likely need some help.

Travel Planners

One of the more obvious apps for travel is a travel planner. One good one is called “Tripit.” This app lets you keep your hotel, directions, airline tickets and every other aspect of your trip in order. It also includes options for car rentals, restaurants, and other plan options. It can be useful to keep all of these things organized and in one place, since when you’re scrambling to get to the next leg of your trip, you hardly want to waste any time trying to figure out where you put the info for an airline or a hotel.

Translation

Language can often be a major barrier to people going on trips. In the past, it’s been enough of a barrier that most people would have to stay to well-worn paths while in countries that speak foreign languages. But with apps like Google Translate, this is now changing. The new “conversation mode” will allow you and someone else to communicate even if you don’t share a language. The app is hardly perfect yet, but you can definitely get the general gist of what someone is saying. This way you can travel a bit away from areas that don’t always speak English perfectly without feeling like you’ll be completely lost in the process.

The Right App for the Right Situation

Overall, just about any situation that you find yourself in could be enhanced with the right app. The vast majority of these apps are either free or have a fairly low cost compared to what you get out of them. In the case of Expensify, you end up saving a lot of time, which is often worth it for the monthly cost to people who need it. And if you have 4G on your phone, you can download any of these apps with considerable speed, and even experience high bandwidth video given the right app.

About the Author: Kate Simmons is a freelance writer and avid traveler. Wherever she’s traveling, she uses 4G to help her everyday needs – if you too find this useful, check out CLEAR internet prices and start using apps now.

License: Creative Commons image source