Mobile apps the traveller’s little helper
There are mobile apps for just about everything and when it comes to helpful ones for planning, booking or during a trip there are a lot of free good ones to choose from.
Not just for reserving flights and accommodations, but also to help find your way around an unfamiliar city, figure out currency conversion, translate foreign languages and avoid cellphone roaming costs when contacting friends and loved ones anywhere in the world.
And apps can help you stay safe, informed and know who to contact in the case of an emergency.
Here are some good websites and free apps available for Android and Apple: Travel safe: The Government of Canada’s Travel Smart app provides up-to-date advice and advisories on more than 200 foreign destinations, emergency contact for embassies and consulates worldwide, a link to the 24-7 Emergency Watch and Response Centre in Ottawa, updated Canada-U.S. border crossing wait times and access to government social media accounts for travel advice sharing. Pack right: Packing what you’ll need and leaving the useless stuff that’ll just weigh you down and take up valuable space is important and PackPoint lists what to take based on a trip’s duration, the destination’s climate and activities planned. It’s up to you to add or remove items. Scheduling: You can wing it, or plan everything to the minutest detail and if you’re the itinerary driven typeTripIt is a must-have place to sync and share your schedule, flight, hotel, car rental, restaurant confirmations and emails and store your travel docs. Currency: A made-in-Canada universal currency converter devised by two Newmarket-area high school buddies Steven Dengler and Beric Farmer in 1993,XE has been repeatedly honoured as one of the GTA’s top employers since 2010 and today serves more than 280 million users. Translation: An early Star Trek device, the voice-to-voice universal translator is a reality with iTranslate and other apps that have voice recognition and text to speech capabilities in most common languages, with new ones being added. With about 100 languages, Google Translate is still a great option. Keep in touch: With more than a billion users in 180 countries, WhatsApp is currently the most popular way for friends and family to stay in touch in voice and video links via smartphone from anywhere except China, where it has been blocked since this past September. Street maps: While Google Maps is the leading global location, direction and distance guidance system, Streetography is a handy map alternative where images uploaded by users help direct where you’re going and find points of interest, neighbourhoods, shops, restaurants, etc., in major cities in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., France, Australia and Russia. There are a lot of different ones out there for Android or Mac. Trip advice: Having a link to the world’s largest travel site on your phone will always come in handy with more than 500 millionTripAdvisor user reviews of hotels, resorts, restaurants, bars, tours, attractions and other travel-related content at your fingertips. The app’s “Near Me” function tips travellers to what’s available in their vicinity. Another global biggie is China-based Ctrip, boasting 300 million members and 30 million user reviews.
When searching out the right hotel, B&B, or resort, restaurants and activities, a dizzying number of websites and apps all do pretty much the same thing. User reviews are great, but not everyone agrees, whether it lodging or air carrier, as it depends on the good or bad experience different people have had.
Check out a few online booking sites and also the hotel’s website. Call its 1-800 line and ask if they can do better than the lowest online deal, or match it and throw in a room upgrade, free breakfast or other perk. This usually works best off-peak, but also when there are high season cancellations. hstancu@thestar.ca