The Descendants
The legacy of the Underground Railroad
ONAVO EXTEND/ONAVO COUNT
As phones get bigger and brighter, their data gets bigger and pricier as well. If you’re using a local SIM card (always recommended) or, heaven forfend, a roaming plan (which recently, thanks to the CRTC, got quite a bit better but really, what were you thinking?), that’s a lot of dosh to upload a selfie at Charlie Chaplin’s grave – unless you want to wait till you get Wi-Fi, but who wants to do that? Onavo Extend (for iOS) lets you to run everything through its cloud. It explains how it all works on its site, but all you need to know is they claim they can extend your data plan by as much as five-fold. Onavo Count for Android keeps track of data and warns when you you’re about to bust.
SKYSCANNER
There are many apps that purport to get you the best deals on flights, but this is the best I’ve found. It’s straightforward, localizable (handy because airfares can be different depending on what country you buy them in), and you can book straight from the app. It’s also broad enough to let you search nearby airports (e.g., Ft. Lauderdale and Miami) to get the best deal. I’ve used it for various forms of impromptu flights, and newer hipper-seeming apps, like Hitlist, actually use this as their engine.
SPLITTR
At its most basic, this app will instantly split a bill, tip included, which can be handy. But more interestingly for travellers, if you’re in a group, you can keep track of any expenses you like over the course of the trip and not only have it all parsed out for you, but you can share it with everyone on Whatsapp. Evernote has a receipt function, and with a little wrangling you could do this with that, too, but this is way easier.
AIRBNB
Beyoncé put the lie to the impression any of us might have had that this property-sharing app is exclusively for budget travellers with her $10,000-a-night post-Super Bowl digs. I’ve only used this once, to get a place in Dartmouth, just outside Halifax. It was half the price of the cheapest hotel room, I had a floor of a house to myself, with a large deck overlooking Halifax Harbour. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to share a space – many Airbnb spots are all yours – but when you do share with a tenant or owner, they tend to become built-in tour guides.
SHAZAM
This is one of those apps you may already have, but it’s great for travel. I’ve been able to put together soundtracks of my trips by using this music identification app to tell me what I’m listening to at cafés, clubs, in the back of tuk-tuks. I’ve discovered French rap, Serbian turbofolk and various forms of Icelandic weirdness this way. Travel is about discovery, and that doesn’t stop at monuments and food.
Whether you tweet or not, Twitter can come in handy in one very specific way. Airlines have tended over the past couple of years to invest their public selves quite heavily in Twitter, priding themselves on their responsiveness. As a result, Twitter can often be the best way to resolve issues big and small. Air France is especially good, Air Canada is pretty responsive, but most major airlines are decent on this front. I’ve changed flights that seemed unchangeable online and gotten information directly and instantly from a dedicated employee in a way that’s almost impossible otherwise with most airlines. And if you’re sitting in an airport, whether you’ve just missed your flight, got there ahead of time and want to get on an earlier one or are having any trouble at all really, Twitter is often a way better way of getting it resolved than going to the counter.
WORLDMATE
This was one of the first big travel apps – I wrote about it as early as 2009 – and it remains one of the most reliable. Just forward any travel confirmation email you get – flight, hotel, car, restaurant – to trips@ worldmate.com, and it will keep track of your itinerary for you. You can also book directly from the app, which will also map all the travel you do with it. It also comes with a currency converter (in case you don’t like XE for some reason) and a decent weather forecast automatically updated to coincide with your location and itinerary. Pay $10 a year, and it will send you flight alerts (in case your airline doesn’t already do that for you) and sync up with whatever calendar you use.
BETTERNET
This is a virtual private network, or VPN, and it can come in handy in places that track or censor the Net. China, for instance, doesn’t let you use Facebook or Twitter. A VPN gets you around that. Turkey blocks dating and hookup sites, as well as most porn, and ditto. It works by telling your data connection that you’re somewhere you’re not. I’ve tried a few, and this one has been the most consistent performer.
“I HAVE ONLY MISTY MEMORIES OF TRAVEL BEFORE CELLPHONES”