It can be hard nowadays to go by without the constant access to the internet. (Damn Millenials and our weird fixation with technology, am I right?) Smartphones, pads and smart watches play a big role in people’s lives and definietly make it easier for travellers. They can help you navigate, contact your friends or find tourist attractions around you easier.
In this post we want to recommend you some free phone apps that can help you while you’re on the road!
If you know another great app that isn’t on our list, comment below and we will add it here 😉
Google maps
Who doesn’t know Google Maps? It’s pre-build in most of the devices and it’s usually the app to go when it comes to maps. What do we like about it? It’s simple, intuitive and you can use it on your mobile devices as well as on your computer. Often updated and with short loading time- That makes it the most popular map app.
The biggest con is that you can use it normally only when you have access to the internet; but, luckily, you can also save parts of maps to be used offline! It’s great for when you don’t have the Internet, although offline maps are usually not very detailed.
Its Google Street View is an amazing feature when it comes to looking for a place to hitch-hike! Sometimes when you look at the map you think you found the best spot possible but once you visit it with Google Street View you can be quite disappointed, when you find there is no place for the car to stop, or the petrol station you were hoping for is actually super small. Better check Street View, before going to the actual place and being met with an unpleasant surprize.
It is also great for finding petrol stations along the road. Just simply mark your route on the map and then click “search: petrol stations” and ta-daa! you have them all on your map.
MAPS.ME
It’s a great open-source offline map. You can find directions or POI (points of interest) without the need to search for wi-fi or using your mobile data. The maps are detailed and are updated quite often since they are open-source.
Hitchhiking Maps
An amazing but not well-known map for hitch-hikers! A world map with spots for hitch-hiking marked on by users. You can find there spots in three different colours: green, yellow and red based on how easy it is to catch a car. Users can also write about the spot, where can you go from that place, rate and comment on other’s posts. With this map you can also plan your hitch-hiking trip and later download it to be avalible offline!
Couchsurfing
Couchsurfing is a hospitality exchange website. It’s a must for every person wanting to meet locals, spend amazing time and have cost-free stay. We’ve written about it before and here you can read our guide on how to find hosts!
The app has one big disadvantage: you can’t check groups – with people of similar interests to yours or last-minute hosting – on it, like you can do on the actual website.
Booking
It is one of the best known websites designed for finding hotels and hostels. We usually don’t use it since we prefer to meet people and find a place through couchsurfing, but if you are looking for a more private place – it’s the app to go! You can find a huge tourist base, read reviews and info about every place, and book a stay on the website. It’s super simple! Although it’s quite difficult to sort through and find the cheapest hostels avaiable.
Duolingo
One of the most intuitive websites that teaches languages! It is made to look like an RPG game where you earn EXP and unlock new levels and it’s just so very cool! You learn by translating words and sentences; not by remembering it by heart. Duolingo offers a huge number of different languages to learn. From the most known ones like German, French or Spanish to those less popular, like Welsh, Irish, Hebrew or Polish. Besides, people at Duolingo are still working on new ones, so if there is no language that you want to learn – just wait and it will probably be there soon; they are even working on Klingon right now.
Memrise
Great app for languages, especially for learning new words; but not only for that. You can also learn some other stuff like history, geography or even programming. It is based on the idea of flashcards – you learn words/definitions/etc and you repeat it with fixed frequency. The better results you get – the lower the frequency is. Almost all of the courses are made by users and you can create your own, too! You can make them public or private – whichever you prefer.
Google Translate
Another app that is normally on most of our devices. And it’s a good one – very easy to translate everything! Works very quickly and as long as you don’t put very long and complicated sentences in it, it should translate quite well. Its translations are definitely to be taken with a grain of salt, since it makes quite a lot of mistakes, but is definitely the most popular one and supports the biggest amount of languages. It also has great features like translating from a photo or through camera!
Skyscanner
An amazing website for booking flights, hostels or renting cars. But mostly about booking flights. It helps you find the cheapest and the best planes possible – you need to type from where to where you want to go and there you go! One of the best features there is the ability to go “wherever”! If you haven’t decided where to go yet or you just don’t care about the destination as long as you travel cheap – definitely check it out!
Kayak
Similar to Skyscanner – helps you with booking flights and hostels or renting cars. It also organises all information about your trip. This website looks for the best flight deals possible. You can also use its great feature “Explore” – tell it how much fo you want to spend on tickets and it will tell you where you can go for that price!
Flixbus
Flixbus is a bus company that can take you to many places in Europe. Their biggest advantage is that they have quite cheap tickets. We have never used it as their prices are still too expensive for us (remember, we are poor gays) but we know many people who do! With their app you can find your ride, make a reservation and show your tickets on your phone or other device with a screen- no printing necessary.
BlaBlaCar
It’s a car-sharing website that helps both travellers and drivers connect. As a traveller, you find a ride and pay a fixed price to the driver. It helps drivers save some money on gas and helps people to get from one place to another. BlaBlaCar works in many countries but if it doesn’t in the one you’re traveling in, you can always look for a similar car-sharing website.
Citymapper
An app that combines all different kinds of transport to find the best suited route for you. Buses, trains, cabs, subways, car shares, bikes, walking – everything that comes to mind is there! You can find real-time data there and also alerts of delays or disruptions. It works in most of the bigger cities around the world!
Great for making other people jealous of your trips! Amazing for sharing pictures from your travels and writing about it. Also good for checking out what cool stuff your friends, bloggers or companies you like are doing. What makes Instagram so special? Simplicity, hashtags that you can use to connect with other people and filters/ability to edit photos. We also run an Instagram account that you can follow here!
VSCO
One of many apps for photo editing. You can choose from variety of filters and editing tools. What makes this one so special? The ability to make your own portfolio there and share your pictures with the VSCO community.
If you don’t like this app for photo editing you can also choose a different one because there are tons of them, for example Snapseed or Cymera.
WordPress
Since you are here- reading our post on wordpress- we don’t think we need to explain what WordPress is. It’s great if you want to make a blog about your adventures and read about others’, get inspired or find some tips and guides.
PackPoint
PackPoint is a great app that helps you with packing. First – write where are you going, when, and for how long; then – check activities that you want to do there. Maybe you want to swim there? Or travel with your kid? This app will help you with that! After you give it the information it needs, the app will tell you what kind of weather you can expect there and give a whole list of important things to take with you. Very handy!
TripIt
It is a cool travel organizer! It creates master travel plan for your trips after synching it with your e-mail and calendar. After that, you can see your entire trip in one place, neatly organised. It also includes maps or driving directions with costs of your rides.
Google Trips
Another amazing travel organizer! It automatically takes all the info from your Gmail account and Google Calendar and puts it in one place that is also available offline. After that, it gives you many, many suggestions for stuff to do, see or eat; where to go and what to visit. Everything sorted by categories so it’s easier to choose the perfect option for you. There are also day trips already prepared and ready for you to use. It just basically helps you with everything!
TripAdvisor
Puts together everything you want to see and do in a particular place! You can get a lot of information out of it: the best hotels, restaurants, places to see and attractions- with opinions and reviews from other people. For us it’s a great site to check what to do in new places.
Happycow
Great vegan and vegetarian food finder! It’s the best food locator when it comes to places not serving meat. You can find restaurants or cafes but also farmer’s markets (good for when you want to try freeganism or/and ask for leftovers!), vegan stores or other veg related businesses. You can look at the interactive map or look through filters in over 180+ countries around the world! It also has a paid version with some more additional features.
Everyone knows about it and almost everyone uses it, because it is a great website! For us, it is one of the best social medias ever. We communicate with friends there, read news and run our poorgaysonholidays page (so go like it now!). Beside that, Facebook is great because of its groups. We joined some connected with traveling such as Nomads – a life of free/cheap travel . Groups are also a good spot for finding a place to rent in different countries if you want to stay some more time in one place.
Messenger
We think there is no need to describe this app, either. Usually when you use Facebook, you also use Messenger. It is a simple and easy way to talk with your friends in private or in groups. What adds to the experience are all those cute stickers you can put into your conversations!
Great app for communication if you have Internet access! With this app you can call or text people around the world without paying huge fees. If you’re a budget traveller this one is for you! You can contact your friends, family or couchsurfing hosts for free. You just need to find a WiFi spot or use your own data transfer to stay in touch with everyone. There is no need for logging in, since the app uses your phone number.
Gloqon
A Facebook-like page but more focused on your location so it’s great for travellers/digital nomads wanting to connect with people around them. Each post is visible only for people within a specific region so it’s easy to meet-up or look for a specific thing in your location. There will be guides created by people through #travelgott soon. It’s quite new so there might be not much going on near you, but invite your friends and make them invite friends of friends and help in creating a great community together!
App is coming soon.
poor gays on holidays 
Awesome round up of apps! The Memrise app sounds really cool!
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Thank you!
Memrise is amazing! Not only it helped us with languages (also tons of words for philology studies) but also with remembering all the countries around the world or some other stuff! It’s just great! You should definitely check it out
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THE HAPPY COW APP IS THE BEST THING EVER!!!!!!!! I didn’t know it, thank you soooo much!!
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No problem ❤ we discovered this app while writing this post so we were also quite late with it 😉
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Thanks for the great list! I am obsessed with a few of these – especially Duolingo and TripAdvisor, and I have a feeling PackPoint will change my life!
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No problem! We also found out Pack Point very recently (while writing this article) and we also think that it’ll change our lives!
We’re glad you found our article useful ❤
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I also love Here We Go maps as you can download whole countries for turn by turn navigation that is better than Google maps’ offline features.
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Thank you for sharing that with us! We’ll definitely check this app out!
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This is so helpful, thank you
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Thank you!
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