Quick Links
Getting Around | Uncovering Hidden Gems | Speak The Lingo | Banking Abroad | For The Journey | Planning The Perfect Trip
Planning a perfect holiday is stressful enough. Between working out all the flight details, all the costs and everything else it can all be a bit much. Luckily, there’s a little device in your pocket that can help you with pretty much everything.
This is the Zest guide to travel apps. Your one stop place for handpicked travel apps. All designed to make your holiday easier, more enjoyable and more packed with great experiences. You can click the links for any of the apps to download them on your iPhone or Android device.
Getting around
Google Maps – iOS | Android
Google maps is the king of navigation. Whether you’re walking, driving or even catching public transport; Google Maps has you covered.
Perfect for: finding your way around new places, finding places to eat, finding places to fill up with petrol or diesel.
Uber – iOS | Android
Uber revolutionised the taxi industry. Book cars directly to wherever you are for wherever you’re going. All done easily in app for cheaper than normal taxis.
Perfect for: hassle free taxi journeys, no phone calls or locations to translate. Easy to pay.
Lyft – iOS | Android
Lyft does everything Uber does however they only operate in the United States. They allow you to easily book taxis from their app on your phone.
Perfect for: an easy taxi experience in the US, book taxis straight from your phone.
Citymapper – iOS | Android
Citymapper provides incredible levels of details when trying to get around a city. Real time departures, transport maps and constant updates.
Perfect for: Easy navigation up to the minute around a ton of cities worldwide.
Waze – iOS | Android
Waze provides fantastic driving direction and up to the minute traffic updates provided by millions of other Waze users.
Perfect for: driving around busy city locations and avoiding the traffic.
Gasbuddy – iOS | Android
Gasbuddy provides the most comprehensive map of gas stations and their prices. Find insanely cheap petrol prices all the US.
Perfect for: US road-trips where penny pinching on petrol is essential.
Chargemap- iOS | Android
ChargeMap has a worldwide map of EV charging stations as well as route planner, allowing you to easily plan your recharge during a long car journey.
Perfect for: electric car renters who are concerned about finding charging stations abroad.
Uncovering hidden gems
Tripadvisor – iOS | Android
Tripadvisor is the gold standard when it comes to finding hidden gems in new places. User reviews easily bring the best spots to your attention. The app is quick, clean and easy to use.
Perfect for: finding lesser known spots with fantastic reputations whether you’re looking for food, fun or just something to do.
Google Assistant – iOS | Android
Google Assistant is Google’s powerful answer to every question you’ve got. Ask anything from “where’s the nearest petrol station?” to “How much is $200 in pounds?” and Google assistant can help.
Perfect for: Quick, relevant answers while on the go. The power of Google behind every search.
Yelp – iOS | Android
Yelp is the longest runner in the local business listing game. They have thousands of businesses listed along with reviews, opening hours and everything else you could need to know.
Perfect for: Quickly finding local businesses which may not be discoverable on other services.
Darksky – iOS | Android
Darksky is a gorgeous, incredibly well detailed weather app for wherever you are. Providing up to the minute information and detailed forecasts for the next 7 days.
Perfect for: Checking the weather is going to be kind to your fantastic holiday plans.
Speak the lingo
Google Translate – iOS | Android
Google Translate is the powerhouse of internet language translation. The app lets you type in phrases to see them in the new language and even take pictures of foreign phrases and translates it to English for you.
Perfect for: Quick, easy powerful translation for pretty much any language you can think of.
Duolingo – iOS | Android
Duolingo is great for before, during and after your holiday. It offers a quick and fun way to learn a new language with easy to follow tasks and explanations.
Perfect for: Learning a new language in a fun, quick and incredibly easy to follow along way.
Banking abroad
Monzo – iOS | Android
Monzo is a full featured bank with a fantastic App. It allows you to deposit money easily in pounds and easily pay abroad in the correct currency. All done with no extra charges or fees.
Perfect for: making paying abroad as simple as possible with a powerful app and no extra charges or fees.
Revolut – iOS | Android
Revolut is very similar to Monzo above, offering a full featured bank account with no fees for paying abroad. The difference here is that you can choose when to turn pounds into another currency to maximise the rate.
Perfect for: fuss and stress-free banking with no fees. A great app which allows you to maximise your exchange rate.
XE Currency – iOS | Android
This powerful does everything you could want from a currency converter. Convert any currency combination in a slick, easy to use app. It gives you the knowledge to take full advantage of changing exchange rates.
Perfect for: quick, easy and powerful currency conversion from any combination of currencies.
For the journey
Flio – iOS | Android
Flio is the ultimate flight tracker and airport companion. Track all your flights in one place and know everything about every airport you’ll be visiting. Find all stores and get notified about your flights
Perfect for: keeping on top of everything while flying or waiting around between flights.
Spotify – iOS | Android
Spotify is a music streaming service with millions of songs available. It has a free plan which allows you to play any album but with ads but if you’re just after some music, it’s perfect and easy to use.
Perfect for: fuss free and literally free music anywhere. If you don’t mind the ads on the free plan.
Planning the perfect trip
Airbnb – iOS | Android
Airbnb is the Uber of places to stay. It allows you to easily book local places to stay from within the app. All places to stay are real houses owned and rented by local people.
Perfect for: soaking up the culture and staying somewhere truly local. Finding hidden gems.
Google Trips – iOS | Android
Google Trips is Google’s foray into full on holiday management. This powerful app lets you store all your flight details, bookings and everything else in one place.
Perfect for: keeping everything about your holiday in one place. Track everything from your itinerary to your flights.
Do you have any travel apps that you would recommend? Let us know what apps are always on your phone when you travel!
