With the recent boom in hand held electronics, it is no surprise there are already hundreds of thousands of applications to make your every day life easier. With that being said, there is no shortage of travel related applications.
To help you sort though them all, I ranked and summarized what I firmly believe are the top 10 Best Travel Apps available today to ease your next journey..
10. Urban Spoon: As the name suggests, this app helps you find local food joints, but in a rather unique manner. Simply shake your device and watch as close by restaurants slide across your screen. Urban Spoon can be downloaded free of charge.
9. Kayak: If you haven’t seen the humorous commercial for kayak’s website, no worries as their app is perhaps the easiest way to find flights, hotels, and even car rentals. Being Apple’s most downloaded travel app, it even allows you to track your own flight, check out special events local to the area, and even convert from one currency to another. There is no charge for the Kayak app.
8. Trailhead: The trailhead app is all you will ever need to pursue various types of outdoors leisure activities. This app will detect your present location and turn around and find all nearby hiking and bike trails in the vicinity. This app is also capable of finding local outdoor events, display your current speed and elevation. The trailhead app can be downloaded free of charge.
7. Everytrail: This is perhaps one of the most user friendly travel apps you will find. As you are walking, easytrail will guide you on a very eye-friendly map, giving you street names, compass, and travel details along the way. Everytrail is also a free application, with a countless number of spots pre-programmed into it already shared by other users.
6. Postagram: The days of sending postcards to family and friends are long gone, but the days of postagram are in! This unique app lets you create your own unique postcard around a photo you took, and then lets you send it to anyone, anywhere in the world. Simply provide the mailing address and the postagram app will send all of your travel pictures via mail. Postagram costs 99 cents per printed postcard.
5. Flight Aware: There is probably not an easier application out there for tracking your flights. All the user is required to do it input their flight number and let the app work its magic. It will even inform you of flight delays, gate changes, or cancellations saving you valuable time. Flight Aware is also another free application.
4. Jetsetter: This app is unique in that you need an invitation to download it, but there is no cost associated with the download. Jetsetter is known to feature almost every type of hotel you can image from high end luxury suites to cheap motels, and it does it at discounts as high as 50%. This app will surely open your eyes to deals you never knew existed before.
3. Instagram: Imagine being able to take any photograph on your journey, open it in photoshop and become a professional photo editor essentially turning your picture into a masterpiece. Instagram can help you do just that – giving your photos unique filtered effects. It is even easier to share your works of art on social networking sites with this app – and did I mention it too is free!
2. Photosynth: Imagine being able to create panoramic 360 degree images on your hand held device. Well, your imagination just became a reality with photosynth. This nifty app literally will stitch together your photos and create a 360 degree panoramic image which you can share on social networking sites or send to family or friends. If you can’t believe all that, then maybe it’s even harder for you to believe this app is free!
1. Trip It: Finally, my number one pick! It may not have the cool factor of photosynth, but Trip it will keep you from loosing your hair during your travels. Don’t ever worry about juggling unnecessary paperwork again, as this app will link your email and note every confirmation number that is sent to your inbox. Whether it is a flight, hotel reservation, dinner reservation, or anything else that contains some form of confirmation number, this app has your back. Furthermore, flight delays or last minute cancellations will be sent to your email automatically. The best part? This app is also FREE!
So there you have it, my top 10 best travel apps. With the exception of just one, they are all free to download and will make your travels much more enjoyable.