We could hardly be happier to live and travel in this day and age. The world has never been so connected and the most beautiful places on this planet have never been as accessible as they are today.

What additionally makes traveling a lot easier are the numerous travel apps. We couldn’t imagine wandering the world with a travel map and constantly getting lost. Even though we partly witnessed this in our own childhood, how our parents got lost because no pleasant voice told you early enough to turn in 500 meters.

Even though it’s nice to just put the smartphone on the side and enjoy the moment, traveling in the era of smartphones and extremely helpful travel apps is a blessing and we definitely don’t want to miss it.

The numerous advantages of it are:

• Comparing accommodations and finding the best ones.
• Finding the best flight for the trip.
• Being well informed about the booked flights.
• Navigate to numerous places of interest more easily.
• Reaching the destination with offline maps.
• Find and enjoy numerous exciting tours.
• Find optimal transportation from A to B.
• Find and book the best deals for bus travel.
• Keep better track of your travel budget.
• Be able to calculate exchange fees quickly.
• Save on international bank fees.
• Avoiding classic cabs and exorbitant costs.
• Find vegetarian/vegan restaurants faster.
• Capturing and collecting your own adventures.

All the benefits make traveling so much more enjoyable and relaxing. Your time is precious and the little helpers in the form of colorful apps are here to help you enjoy your travels.

There are at least a dozen apps on the market to book your next accommodation. From our experience of numerous trips on 6 continents and over 55+ countries, we have our clear two favorites.

Airbnb

We are big fans of accommodations that literally make us feel at home. Therefore, whenever possible, we look for the best accommodations on Airbnb with a well-equipped kitchen to cook delicious food, or at least prepare a good breakfast. Of course, a comfortable couch and a good bed are not to be missed to relax after a long day of adventures.

What we additionally love about Airbnb is that you get good and solution-oriented support for any issues. In addition, the accommodations often have a personal touch and you feel right at home.

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‎Airbnb

Developer: Airbnb, Inc.

Price: Free

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Airbnb

Developer: Airbnb

Price: Free

Booking.com

Our second choice is Booking.com. The market leader in hotels is perfect for finding a nice hotel room. Also, there are often countries, such as in Asia, where you can still search for a long time on Airbnb for an apartment. In such countries you can find it as well as hotels on Booking.com, for which your heart beats faster.

We like Booking.com’s wide range of accommodations, but in our experience, the support is less helpful when it comes to unpleasant matters, and you often have to sort it out on the spot, if at all possible.

This app is literally our second choice, even though we like programs like Genius, which allows loyal customers to benefit from some discounts and other offers.

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‎Booking.com: Hotel Angebote

Developer: Booking.com

Price: Free

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Booking.com: Hotels

Developer: Booking.com Hotels & Vacation Rentals

Price: Free

Meanwhile there are several comparison portals for finding the best flight online. Over the past few years, we have tried out a few of them, depending on the situation, until clear favorites have emerged over time.

Skyscanner

At Skyscanner we always find the best deals for the upcoming flight. Not only can you filter perfectly according to your needs, but on it for the same flight also find the best offer at different booking portals.

Skyscanner itself is not a booking portal, but serves much more as a pure search engine for the upcoming flight. Once you have found a suitable flight, you can save it and be informed about price changes, while keeping your fingers crossed that it goes down a bit.

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‎Skyscanner Flüge Hotels Autos

Developer: Skyscanner

Price: Free

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Skyscanner Flüge Hotels Autos

Developer: Skyscanner Ltd

Price: Free

Google Flights

Lately, we’ve found ourselves liking Google Flights more and more, probably the biggest relevant competitor to Skyscanner. Unfortunately, Google Flights is not a real app but a pure website. But that shouldn’t stop you from using it.

The big advantage of Google Flights is that you have a better and easier to understand overview of how airfares are changing around your planned departure date. Often it is advisable to be a little more spontaneous and leave or return a couple of days earlier and save a lot on the airfare.

We all know it. One flight is booked with one provider, another somewhere else. If it’s a longer trip, such as a trip around the world, you can easily lose track of all the flights.

Flighty

With the Flighty app, you can enter any upcoming flight and stay informed about it until departure and after.

• Will my flight arrive on time?
• At which terminal do I have to check in?
• Which gate am I departing from?
• What type of aircraft will I be flying with?
• Which seat am I sitting again?
• How much time do I have until departure?

These and many more questions can be answered and clearly displayed with the Flighty app. It makes our already somewhat stressful flight day much easier and the whole experience at the airport more enjoyable.

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‎Flighty – Live Flight Tracker

Developer: Global Flight, Airport, & Airline Status Tracker LLC

Price: Free⁺

Finally arrived at the destination, you often want to start exploring as soon as possible. It’s good that you can find numerous sights in advance and have already entered them in the app. Thus, nothing can stand in the way of a quick start.

Google Maps

Not surprisingly, Google Maps is the top dog for finding all the sights, restaurants, museums and public transport connections. After reading our great, informative and beautiful travel guides about your favorite destinations and entering the recommended places into Google Maps, you are ready for your big adventure.

The nice thing about Google Maps is that besides the POI’s and the navigation function, you can also find the public transport connections worldwide and thus easily get from A to B.

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‎Google Maps - Transit & Essen

Developer: Google

Price: Free

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Google Maps

Developer: Google LLC

Price: Free

Apple Maps

Apple Maps is an even nicer alternative with more respect for your privacy. Even though we are both convinced Apple users, we have to admit that Apple Maps is unfortunately still far behind Google Maps in regards of POI’s. Especially outside of the USA you will find much less places and as well information about public transportation.

For navigation in the car, however, Apple Maps on iPhones is a feast for the eyes and perfectly integrated into the system using natural language while guiding you around.

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‎Karten

Developer: Apple

Price: Free

Organic Maps

Sometimes you haven’t yet purchased a local SIM card and need to navigate to a location. Or you find yourself somewhat off the grid with no reception. In such cases, we recommend Organic Maps. With this app, you can download offline maps in advance and find your destination anywhere in the world and navigate there. The best part is: it’s completely free! And you can download an unlimited number of offline maps.

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‎Organic Maps: Navi & Karten

Developer: Organic Maps

Price: Free

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Organic Maps Offline Karten

Developer: Organic Maps

Price: Free

On site, you often want to experience something more. Be it guided tours, or just experiences that you could not experience without locals. From local food tours to historical walking tours to boat trips.

GetYourGuide

For many years, we have been booking our tours and experiences via GetYourGuide in the vast majority of cases. We love the simplicity of the app, the extensive offer and the attractive prices. In addition, the GetYourGuide app gives you a nice overview of the upcoming tour after booking and always keeps you up-to-date.

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‎GetYourGuide: Reisen & Tickets

Developer: GetYourGuide

Price: Free

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GetYourGuide: Reisen & Tickets

Developer: GetYourGuide

Price: Free

Viator

Everyone has their own preferences, so do the tour providers, with which platform they prefer to work together. Some tours overlap, others you won’t find on GetYourGuide, so it may be worth looking at Viator (part of Tripadvisor) and booking your adventure there.

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‎Viator Touren & Aktivitäten

Developer: Viator

Price: Free

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Viator: Touren und Aktivitäten

Developer: Viator

Price: Free

For long-distance travel, it doesn’t always have to be a flight. Be it because the next destination has no airport, one prefers a more ecological mode of transport for shorter distances or simply does not want to fly.

Rome2Rio

On our trip around the world, we couldn’t be happier to use Rome2Rio . No other app or website offers such a great overview of all means of transportation to get to the destination.

Often you can be redirected from the app directly to the provider, or at least find out the name of the provider. With Rome2 Rio, we have already found bus trips from Zagreb to Belgrade, for example, or bus connections between Sofia and Plovdiv.

Rome2Rio is far from perfect, but it is by far the best place to find national and international transport connections.

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‎Rome2Rio

Developer: Rome2rio Pty Ltd

Price: Free

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Rome2Rio

Developer: Rome2Rio Pty Ltd

Price: Free

There is a sore point that often makes our heads spin. It is the cab drivers who see every tourist as a walking wallet. But there is a turnaround and the system is changing for the better.

Uber

Meanwhile, a few years ago, the provider Uber came on the market and turned the whole cab business upside down. Especially the private persons, who could be booked as drivers, made the Uber rides so much cheaper than the traditional cabs. In addition, Uber as a transport company has no large headquarters as well as no own cars. These circumstances made it possible to offer unprecedented low prices for the rides.

Meanwhile, it is so that in some destinations cab companies have granted themselves so strongly against Uber that you can order, for example, in Istanbul via the Uber app only a traditional cab. In addition, the drivers then demand a higher price than in the app in most cases and otherwise cancel the booking. Unfortunately, we also experienced the same thing in San Jose in the Dominican Republic.

Nevertheless, Uber works great in numerous countries around the world and lets you save quite a bit on your travel budget.

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‎Uber - Fahrt bestellen

Developer: Uber Technologies, Inc.

Price: Free

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Uber - Eine Fahrt bestellen

Developer: Uber Technologies, Inc.

Price: Free

Our travel budget defines how frugally or luxuriously we can travel and how long we can afford to travel accordingly. We love to keep track of our expenses on our world trip and in general. Be it to know for ourselves where we spent how much, how much money we have left or to inform you about the numerous destinations on our blog including the expected expenses for our own travel budget.

TravelSpend

After numerous trips around the world and several travel budget apps, we can by far recommend TravelSpend as the best travel budget app. In our opinion, no other app comes close to TravelSpend in terms of design and functionality.

You can enter your travel dates and planned budget (optional) into the app and track all of your spending in a variety of categories. We’ve been using TravelSpend for a few years now and have since deleted all other travel budget apps from our smartphones.

With Travel Spend you can also enter joint trips and keep an overview of who has paid how much for what. So nothing stands in the way of a fair split.

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‎TravelSpend Reisekosten Budget

Developer: Ori App Studio GmbH

Price: Free⁺

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TravelSpend Reisekosten Budget

Developer: Ori App Studio

Price: Free

There is a Croatian saying that goes:

Clean bill. Long love.

Too many unpleasant discussions and disputes have arisen in world history because of finances. Therefore, you are always well advised to keep your travel money clean.

Spend Together

If not already with Travel Spend, then at the latest with Spend Together you can list the joint expenses of you and your friends, partners or family members. Who paid how much for what?

Keep track so you can always see who owes how much money to whom. This will save you unnecessary discussions and you can enjoy more the actual trip. And at the end you can still decide how and if you want to pay the remaining debts or invite your travel partners.

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‎Spend Together

Developer: Kyrylo Kuzyk

Price: Free⁺

Did you know that we were multimillionaires in Vietnam?

It wasn’t hard either, when just under $40 is already 1 million Vietnamese dong. While the euro, US dollar and Swiss franc are relatively close, there are currencies in our beautiful world whose exchange rate will definitely cause confusion.

Currency

Currency apps are a dime a dozen. Some of them are great, others haven’t been updated in years or offer more ads than features. For our tastes, we stuck with the app with the simple name Currency and can highly recommend it.

The app lets you view multiple exchange rates at once, calculate them, and even view their history over the last few months or years. Currency does exactly what it’s supposed to do – display exchange rates in a simple yet beautiful way.

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‎Currency

Developer: Jeffrey Grossman

Price: Free⁺

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Currency

Developer: Currency App LLC

Price: Free

Banks are like casinos – they always win!

This quote couldn’t be truer. No matter where you travel, banks are constantly slapping some high fee on every card payment and cash withdrawal.

That’s why we couldn’t be happier to live in a time when the banking system is being totally turned around by neobanks. For long enough, they have profited so much from all of us because they had a monopoly on the money system and therefore didn’t have to try very hard. And if other classic banks were to emerge on the horizon, they were ultimately not much better for the end customer.

Revolut

A few years ago, Revolut was recommended to us. At the beginning we were still critical of the whole thing, but today we are infinitely grateful. Through his tip to install Revolut and get the appropriate card, we have in the years since then certainly several hundreds, if not thousands of bank fees and unfair exchange rates can save.

In the meantime, Revolut has slightly increased its fees here and there, but compared to the classic banks, it is still miles better and cheaper. Personally, we only use the classic banks for payment transactions at home.

PS: The colleague who recommended Revolut to us was working in a classic bank at the time. Hello irony!

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‎Revolut: Die Finanz-Super-App

Developer: Revolut Ltd

Price: Free

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Revolut: Die Finanz-Super-App

Developer: Revolut Ltd

Price: Free

As a vegetarian or vegan, depending on the country and food culture, it can be quite exhausting to find something without meat. Even in the modern world we live in today. We have already spent countless hours on Google Maps trying to find something to eat.

Happy Cow

Fortunately, a few smart people have seen the problem and developed an app that lists purely vegetarian or vegan restaurants, or at least regular restaurants that offer meatless options. With Happy Cow, depending on the country, we were a lot quicker to stuff our rumbling stomachs and enjoy a delicious meal.

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‎HappyCow - Vegan Food Near You

Developer: HappyCow

Price: 5,99 €

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HappyCow - Vegane Restaurants

Developer: HappyCow

Price: Free

Some apps are just helpers to make traveling more enjoyable. Others are more playful and can help you remember your travels better and inspire you for new adventures.

Mark O’Travel

Have you ever wondered how many countries you’ve already visited, or which ones you’re still dying to explore? With Mark O’Travel you can record all that and much more.

We love to keep track of the countries we’ve been to. And even within these countries to mark which areas we have visited. We also use the Mark O’Travel app to record which trips we’ve already planned and where we really badly want to go.

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‎Mark O’Travel: Ihre Reisekarte

Developer: Sergei Shpygar

Price: Free⁺

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Mark O’Travel: Ihre Reisekarte

Developer: Sergei Radetel

Price: Free

Polarsteps

Where are you now?

To keep your family and friends updated live, Polarsteps comes in handy. With this app, you can record and share your entire itinerary. Plus, you can give the app access to your live location so everyone can see where you are and what adventure you might be on with the private link.

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‎Polarsteps - Travel Tracker

Developer: Polarsteps B.V.

Price: Free

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Polarsteps - Travel Tracker

Developer: Polarsteps

Price: Free

Travel apps definitely make everyday travel easier and we love them! Whether it’s finding cheaper trips, being more organized on the road, saving money or capturing all the moments better. We wouldn’t want to miss them!

Still, don’t forget to put your smartphone in your pocket as often as you can and enjoy your surroundings. Because the real beauty looks best in reality.

And now it’s your turn. What are your favorite travel apps? Let us know in the comments.