This is a guest post by The Recapp, who recommends these five free travel apps, compatible with Android devices, for all your travel needs.
As the calendar year is winding down, our stress and fatigue levels are surely rising from a busy 12 months. It’s time for a vacation! Whether you’re already planning to take a retreat during the holidays or you want to plan a trip for next year, you’ll want to be prepared for your travels.
1. Skyscanner
How many flight-finding apps are out there? The answer is simple: too many. So when we downloaded Skyscanner, we assumed this free travel app would fail to impress us with any features we haven’t seen before.
What we quickly came to value was Skyscanner’s speedy loading times, sleek and easy-to-navigate interface, and plentiful search results. When we test-booked a flight to Paris (which we wish was real), the app produced a whopping 145 results, all listed in order of increasing price. The travel app then lets you filter these flights by airline, time of day and flight duration. Once you’ve found your ticket to paradise, you can easily share your travel plans and, most importantly, book by phone or Internet.
2. Cruise Finder
Did you know there are cruises from Africa to the North Pole? With cruise options galore, we found Cruise Finder to be the best app for planning a cruise vacation. Begin your search by browsing cruise ships, destinations, departure ports or dates. You can even choose a cruise based on what ship or deck plan you prefer (we’d go for the ships with the rock climbing walls).
In addition to its many search options, Cruise Finder incorporates fun tools like a countdown clock to build the anticipation until your departure date. Best of all, Cruise Finder loads cruise search results quickly—it took just four seconds to load results for our test cruise vacation. Considering you won’t find anything free on your cruise (good luck with that credit card bill the following month), you’ll appreciate that this travel app is 100-percent free and completely helpful.
3. GasBuddy
If your idea of a vacation is experiencing the wide-open road at a leisurely pace, a great gas-finder app will always come in handy. Or, if you’re simply on the road frequently for business travel, a convenient gas station locator can make your work adventure more enjoyable.
GasBuddy finds the closest gas stations according to your GPS location (in the U.S. and Canada) and pinpoints the best gas prices around. Just search by zip code or GPS to view the gas stations near you with the best fuel prices. It’s not uncommon to find stations that sell gas as much as 30 cents per gallon cheaper than others!
4. Google Translate
For the journeys that take you abroad, make sure you pack Google Translate. We’re amazed that this translation app is free, not to mention that it translates over 60 languages. You can also receive translations for 17 languages by speaking directly into the app, and then listen as your app speaks the translations aloud for 24 languages (a major plus for languages that contain unfamiliar letters).
The translation app allows you to save your favorites, or translations you think will frequently pose useful in everyday conversation. It also provides dictionary information for unknown terms.
5. Goby
Goby tells you what’s going on anywhere (in the U.S.), anytime. With endless lists of things to do, it’s easy to fill your vacation or your downtime during a business trip with fun activities.
Choose from more than 350 categories—from Arts & Culture to Outdoor Recreation—depending on what mood you‘re in. Hanging out in New York City for a night? Check out places to go dancing. Or, if you’re with the family in a city with historical charm, tap the app’s Sightseeing & Tours section to find a tour that suits everyone. In our opinion, Goby is the perfect tool for experiencing a new (and old) city from the palm of your hand.
Mary Georger is an editor at The Recapp, an app-review website featuring one great new app a day, personal app recommendations and app developer interviews.
Traveling across timezones and keeping track of them can be a bit jarring for our biological clocks but you may have noticed your Macbook getting a bit slow over the years as well. When you cross timezones and update you clock – you might be exposing a problem you wouldn’t otherwise notice – that your Macbook clock is a minute or two behind. That problem amplifies over time and your clock could easily be 5-10 minutes off without you realizing it, especially if you travel often.
