Top Five Essential Apps For International Travel

Traveling abroad is unfamiliar, exciting, adventurous, expensive, and even frightening to some. Whether you're a world renown traveler, first timer studying abroad, or you frequently have business trips internationally- there is something to be said about using applications for travel. While some find appeal in losing yourself in an unfamiliar city without use of any resources, there are perpetual benefits that utilizing technology while travelling will reap. It doesn't have to be unfamiliar, expensive, or even frightening with the aid of these free applications available on most devices.

If you see my past post on "Five Advantageous Apps for Domestic Travel" you can see that four out of five of these apps can cross over to be used internationally such as Kayak, Yelp, Photaf or Photosynth, and Trip Journal.

 Skype (all devices)/Facetime (Apple only)- Part of what makes travelling so frightening is that you may be leaving your loved ones behind. Skype or Facetime allows you to talk in real time, and feel like you are in person communicating thousands of miles away. Let's be honest- some of us utilize it because it lets you see your beloved pets that you leave behind (see one of my many snapshots of Skyping my wiener dog abroad to the left). For those of us who prefer texting our friends and family, use TextPlus which lets you send unlimited text messages for free in any WiFi location directly to your loved one's domestic phones.

 Google Maps- Google Maps is my favorite free app for getting to where you need to go. You can see transportation options to get you from The Vatican back to The Pantheon; maps for indoor locations including some airports, shopping centers, and stores; 3-D maps to get a realistic sense of your destination; as well as the street view option of the location you're trying to find. My favorite part of it is the turn-by-turn GPS navigation feature making it nearly impossible to get lost.

 Google Translate- Going to be in a rural mountain town filled with local inhabitants, a rustic village deep in the country-side, maybe lost in the heart of Barcelona, or perhaps just desperately need to tell your French waiter in a Crêperie about your allergy to strawberries? This is exactly what you need. Take out the stuttering uncertainty and hurried flipping through an English to Spanish Dictionary, and simply speak what you need to say into this app complete with over 50 languages. You can either type out your needed translation or speak into it. While it may not be on target for grammar 100% of the time, you can get the message across you're trying to convey successfully. If you're willing to spring for a $0.99 app, try out "Languages" as it's best feature is that it can be used offline.

 XE Currency Exchange- It can be hard to maintain your finances overseas- especially when euros look like Monopoly money. XE Currency Exchange tells you the exchange rate in many countries in real-time if you are connected to WiFi to allow you to optimize the best time to take out your money to stretch your American dollars. My favorite part about it is that it remembers the most recently checked rate. This means you can still convert your cash with accuracy even when you don't have an internet connection.

 Time Out city guides- This is the best free guide for the most popular cities in the world. It provides insights on hotels, dining, shows, and night-life. The best feature is that it gives expert local knowledge so that you can see popular touristy spots, as well as a city's best kept secret.

 My next blog will cover the best essentric and fun travel apps- so stay tuned!