Was curious what apps this board uses while traveling. I know there are a lot out there and am curious if I am missing some. What do you use, why, and for what purposes?

Here are my go to travel apps:

Tripit: This easily consolidates all my bookings into one place. Everything from hotel, flight, car rental, dining reservations, AirBnbs, and any other tours/expeditions etc. It is an essential resource for me. It also has detailed airport maps, gives you push notifications for flight delays etc.

Chimani: This is my go to app for National Parks. Downloadable guides with info on points of interest, hiking trails, offline location capabilities, general information about the park you are visiting. This app does a lot of things really well but nothing quite elite. Absolutely recommend this to anyone who is into visiting National Parks.

All Trails: Great app for hiking trails. I bet most of you are familiar with it. Crowd sourced info is great to get up to speed on current trail conditions, pics and all that. I like the trail tracker that shows you where you are, great for answering the kids' question of "how much longer", lol.

Google Translate: Really great for foreign countries, obviously. Really like the camera function that translates instantly the words you are seeing, and can even read them in English aloud.

Rick Steves Audio Guides: This was pretty great during our last trip to Italy with the kids. They could pop in their earbuds and listen to the walking tours which definitely helped them have a better understanding of the sights. Full of corny jokes and not the end-all-be-all of information but a great resource to have in your travel toolbox, imo.

I also generally download any public transportation app for any big city we travel to. Makes subway, bus, trolly, etc travel much easier.

What else do y'all use?

I use Travefy for all of my clients but I think its mainly geared at travel agents to use for their clients. It is similar to TripIt, but I can load everything for them in there and it will monitor flights, have all the details about their trip, they can chat with me on it, etc.

Waze for driving/traffic.

MobilePassport for getting back into the country when I'm with people who do not have Global Entry.

I have all the different airline apps to, but figure that is a given.

All Trails is probably the only one I use from your list, just a great app for hiking. Otherwise probably just hotel apps when we are on property; it's amazing how integrated some of them are like the Four Seasons (which sadly does not get used that often, ha ha).

I wish we had digital Rick Steves back in the day of backpacking; still have my 2-inch 1999 Europe paperback with hundreds of notes, highlights and flags; wish my textbooks from A&M were used that much!

ETA: Open Table gets use on vacations as well, which is strange since we never use it at home. Also use FlightAware on travel days religiously to check flight status since AA tends to drag their feet.

Gypsy's guide: For national parks. You do have to purchase the different parks of the US but wow so helpful to put together your itinerary and have a guided audio through especially large parks like Yellowstone, even when you have no cell service

Kayak
TripAdvisor
FlightAware

Ag CPA said:

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I wish we had digital Rick Steves back in the day of backpacking; still have my 2-inch 1999 Europe paperback with hundreds of notes, highlights and flags; wish my textbooks from A&M were used that much!

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Haha, same here. I probably lugged around 20 lbs of CDs and Let's Go books when I was studying abroad in Italy in '98. And navigating with *gasp* paper maps!

I've never used Mobile Passport. What's that about?

I'd add maps.me to the list.

I use it to download maps when we'll be in national parks or other places without reception. You can also import custom googlemaps into it, so you have access to them offline.

I think it's called Airside now. For some airports coming back into the country you can use it to help fast track through customs and immigration. We have used it before with varying success.

Last week, We used MPC - Mobile Passport Control - for re-entry at Hobby from Cancun. Very easy and skipped the line.

That's what I used to use. I thought it had changed names to this.

What's the premise of those apps? How do they help expedite entry? Are they necessary if you have Global Entry?

ol'Porkbelly said:

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What's the premise of those apps? How do they help expedite entry? Are they necessary if you have Global Entry?

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IAH has a lane that is just for people who use it (and the lane is called Mobile Passport Control). I've had times where it speeds it up and once where it ended up being longer. But the idea is you already fill out your docs online so you should get through faster.

We have global entry but our kids do not.

Is anyone aware of an app that helps organize daily itinerary during travel? Where it arranges events with travel time in between on a calendar spread over several days or a few weeks?

That's what I use TripIt for. I think it's fantastic, especially if you aren't fiercely loyal to one airline and/or hotel chain. It congregates all sorts of bookings into one place.

Edit to add: It doesn't offer travel time estimates between destinations but it can push everything to your iCal.

Wish so had known about it. Came into IAH yesterday from Auckland and there was a 45 waiting line for global entry. Have never seen it so bad. Even pilot were in it as one flight attendant said they shut their entry line down.

Skyscanner and Rome2rio

Thanks! Just loaded flights and hotels into the app and it is perfect.