Must Have iOS Apps for Traveling Like a Pro

I used to hate road trips as a kid. My memories include getting frustrated by Triptik maps that would never quite fold correctly, missed exits late at night, and stops at various (questionable) establishments to ask for directions.

In our house, planning a road trip usually involved getting word of mouth recommendations from friends for places to visit and a bunch of rubber-banded AAA Triptik maps.

Thanks to advances in technology, most of the common points of friction in travel have been ironed out. Planning a vacation shouldn’t be work, right?

Trip Advisor makes it really easy to plan day-to-day events and activities. Activities are clearly categorized and easy to sort by expense and independent reviewers’ rating. With the Trip Advisor app, you can quickly set up your own travel itinerary. We used Trip Advisor on two trips (Seattle and Miami) and the event and attraction reviews were right on the money each time. We saved time, gas, and maximized our vacation time with activities that we knew we would enjoy, by reading up on previous customer reviews. This app, in my view, is a must-have for any traveler.

Got ticket confirmation numbers for hotel, car, and airline? Kayak will organize them for you. This little iOS app consolidates all my travel bookings and confirmation numbers into one place. With Kayak, all my travel info is at my fingertips, and not buried away in an obscure email. Kayak can also help users compare rates and shop for deals on airfare, hotels and rental cars, but I’ve never used it for those tasks. I also like the fact that I can view all my past itineraries within Kayak.

For getting around town in a new place, I’ve come to rely on Google Maps. With few exceptions, it does a good job of letting me know in advance when I need to make a turn. What I would welcome in an updated version of Google Maps is the ability for me to save my favorite locations for later use. For example, when I’m staying at a hotel in a different city, I’d like Google Maps to keep that address on a “saved” list for later retrieval. And forget about using Apple Maps. In my experience, it’s horrible.

PayByPhone is a must-have app when you have to pay for public parking. Many cities in the US offer PayByPhone as a convenient method of paying by credit card. Gone are the days of keeping a chunk of change at the ready and running back to a nearly expired meter to feed it coins. The PayByPhone app not only makes it easy to pay for space, it also sends notifications when your parking meter is about to expire. It’s really slick and another must-have, in my books.

You can’t go wrong with any of these apps. These are my favorite go-to apps for travel. What are yours?

-Krishna