All year long, we look forward to summer. Longer, sunnier days, warm weather, and a relaxed atmosphere make it the perfect time to plan a vacation for yourself, or a trip the whole family can enjoy. Before you properly go on vacation though, you should consider some apps that could make your travels and vacation just that much more relaxing.
Packing List
That thing you used to scribble on to a scrap piece of paper has now turned into a easy to use app. Packing list allows you to, very simply, make a list of everything you will need for your vacation. Making a list to plan ahead means that you won’t forget a thing, and ensures you won’t be scrambling last minute after a long plane ride to find your toothbrush. It also allows you email your list to others to help them pack, and keeps a nice inventory of everything you brought, so you don’t forget your favorite sweater when you fly home.
Trip Advisor
When going to a new city, you want to know the best local places to go and see, to really experience what the city has to offer. Museums, restaurants, monuments, parks, gardens, wildlife reserves, you never really know all the hidden gems that a place has to offer. An app like Trip Advisor has reviews from other travelers that you can peruse through to really put together a well-planned vacation. You can relax as well as experience the local culture, to create a cohesive and well-rounded experience. You will not only be well rested, but you may discover a new passion or learn something new by stepping off the beaten tourist’s path and exploring something a little more unique to the locale.
Tripit
Traveling is probably the most stressful part of going on vacation. Flights, hotels, rental cars, they all have booking codes and tickets that need to be kept in order. You most likely planned your trip months in advance, and then come time to check in for your flight, the last thing you want to be doing is scrolling through your inbox for that flight confirmation that you booked months and months ago. An app like TripIt keeps all of your booking and confirmation codes in one place, so that you can relax when it comes to your travels. All you need to do is forward your travel emails to TripIt, and it collects all of your information in one easy to use itinerary. You can then easily share this with your family and friends, so that everyone is one the same page and your vacation relaxation starts when you get to the airport, rather than after hours and hours of traveling.
Gate Guru
Once you have your itinerary together, Gate Guru can help make your airport experience much more streamlined. It provides you with maps, weather, TSA wait estimates, alerts about your flight, and a whole lot more. It used to be that you would just have to hope that the security and check in lines would go quickly, and that the weather would be good so that your flight would have no delays, but now you can have all the most up to date information right there in the palm of your hand.
Foodspotting
Good food is an essential part of everyday life. When you are on vacation , you definitely want to get the best food in your area, especially if you are traveling to a different country, or even a different state. Wherever you are, you want to know where the best restaurants are, so that you can go off the beaten path a bit and eat in the local gems that really encapsulate the culture of the city or town. Apps like Foodspotting allow you to keep up with recommendations that other travelers have made, so that you can pick and choose from the local cuisine for soothing that fits your tastes, but also simultaneously explore new finds.
WordLens
If you want to take your translation experience a step further, then look no further than WordLens. It allows you to point your camera a paragraph of text in another language, and then it translates it into English, or to and from Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, German and Russian. This can come especially in handy for menus, street signs, and a plethora of other things. And you don’t even need to clumsily type in foreign words, just point and click, and it will generate a translation to make your life that much easier.
One of the things to remember is to carefully plan your family’s vacation so that you don’t end up going into debt because of it. If you are already in debt and in need of a vacation, check the top ten reviews for debt consolidation.
City Maps Go
Maps are essential to know where you are going in your everyday life, and when on vacation in an unknown place, they are an indispensable necessity. You may think that you have access to all of the maps on your phone through something like Google Maps, which is fine if you are going somewhere where you know that you will have internet reception. However, if your trip takes to a different country or somewhere away from the cell phone towers, you may find yourself in a bit of a predicament. The last thing you want to be is lost in a foreign country with no idea of where you are. An app like City Maps go allows you to download maps of your destination onto your phone, so that you can view them offline. They have over 700 different maps available, which are complete with points of interest and street names, ensuring that you’ll always be able to find your way around your vacation destination.
Ultralingua
Similarly, if your vacation takes you to a different country, the odds are that the language is probably different. The odds that you happen to be fluent in that language are even slimmer. In another country reliable internet connection is not something to be dependent upon, and that’s where apps like Ultralingus come in handy. An app like this will allow you to download thousands of conversational phrases and verb conjugations and word to word translations, to make sure that you will able to communicate, at least basically, to whomever you are speaking to.
