Travel often, getting lost will help you find yourself
– Holstee Manifesto
This wise quote captures the very essence of travelling far and wide- gaining new experiences, revelling in the wonders of this beautiful world. Be lost, but not quite literally. In fact, that may not even be possible, given the desirable communion of technology and travel. Use tech to your advantage, dig into the latest amazing travel apps and make sure you arrive at your destination, or lose yourself, figuratively, along the way to your dream destination.
Relax and soak in the essence of your travels, and let your mobile do all the tedious work for you. Install these apps to make your holiday better.
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Google Trips
This application is linked to your Gmail account and auto-populates reservations and updates. Google trips is for the carefree road-tripper who wants to stay informed. Right from recommending less touristy places to curating day itineraries for you. The best part is that many of these can be saved offline, eliminating the need for internet connectivity. It is India-friendly.
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MoneyTap
This cool app is a savior for people bitten by the travel bug. MoneyTap’s personal loan can be used as a holiday loan and the interest is charged only on the amount used. Recently, Karthik, a MoneyTapper told his story of how this cool app made it possible for him to travel abroad!
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Citymapper
One for the ardent city-bum, this app offers more detailed journey planning information than Google. Some of the useful updates are real-time departures, disruption alerts, public transport routes, cycle routes, Uber integration and so on. It works well for your foreign locale vacations and is not available in India.
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Duolingo
Do you like to pick up the local language to strike a conversation with the locals? This language learning app is a great catch, it teaches you the basics in a fun way! Designed like a computer game, learning happens by cascading levels, which you need to play to advance. Your path to becoming a foreign language pro as well as Indian languages!
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XE Currency
Managing currency, calculating and recalculating conversions can prove a travel dampener. XE currency proves useful because it has the ability to convert every single world currency. Offline conversion too is possible, though it happens by referencing the last updated rate. Now bid your currency woes goodbye and focus on enjoying your vacation to exotic locales abroad.
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Tripit
Your personal travel agent, it designs customized itineraries if you feed the app your booking and reservation emails. It’s great for group travels, with features to share plans and post updates. Works well for India as well as other destinations.
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App in the Air
Tired of waiting for your flight to land and take you to your next dream destination? Now, track your flight status in real time even if you are not connected to internet. App in the Air is supposed to have amongst the best coverage of airlines and airports, and gives detailed status updates by stage i.e. check in, boarding, take-off and landing time. You can rely on this to best manage and make the most of your interim time in India and abroad.
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Hopper
This cool app has some great tips that Skyscanner or Cheapflights do not. It not only tells you which cheap flight to book, but precisely when to book it for the best deal. Once you search for a flight, the app categorizes it as “Wait” or “Buy”, and sends you notifications when you should pick the deal for a great Indian or foreign holiday.
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Packpoint
Figuring out what to pack and what to leave behind can be a pain. Now use Packpoint and simplify your packing tasks with its bespoke packing lists. Just enter your trip details such as destination, dates, duration and activities planned and it will curate a packing list.
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Rebtel
This app is a saviour as far as wireless calling without an internet connection is concerned. It utilizes local phone lines to put through voice calls to various countries, including India. The app is currently offering a great Rebtel calling deal, wherein you can call friends or family for free if they too are using the app (valid till 2018).
Each of these travel apps add value in its own unique way to make for an easy, hassle-free and memorable holiday. Accessibility to these is easy, with most being available on Android platforms.
