Appy travels! Best apps on the move
Airbnb – accommodation bookings
Choose from urban farms, British pubs and rainforest treehouses! Or simple search for rooms and apartments available in the next stop on your trip. We found Rose Street apartment in Budapest like this and the hosts were quick to respond and sent us loads of local information. The apartment was small but modern, in good decoration and well-equipped.
It is easier to browse the accommodation options on Airbnb from a desktop computer and the app is perhaps a little over simple at times. In the app you search for a city which produces all all the options, then hit the ‘Filters’ button to select your dates, private room, shared room or entire home, number of guests and price range. Scroll through the options, swipe for more images and view the info and amenities before either contacting the hosts or making and instant booking.
What I love most about this app is the ability to find unique and quirky places to stay all in one place without having to search the entire web for something cute and affordable. I also love that you get to know about about your hosts and enjoy a more personable experience than booking into a hotel chain.
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Triposo – attractions and maps
This series of apps (I downloaded the Budapest and Austria apps) are the best alternative to the bulky guidebooks of yesterday. And gone are the days of the giant gaudy map that marks you out as a tourist waiting to be mugged, ripped off, or lead to someone’s cousin’s leatherwear workshop!
The app is easy to navigate and easy to save places of interest. It will recommend places close to you and provide a walking route based on GPS (not wifi or 3G), and you can ask it to plot a walking tour of all your saved places. The images and guide are based on open source information such as Wikitravel and OpenStreetMap.
Top marks from me and I will be downloading Triposo apps again for my next trip for the map functionality alone.
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Stannp – sending postcards back home
This app sounded like a brilliant idea as my mum really wanted a physical postcard from my trip and I usually forget until the last day when it isn’t worth sending one! However with this app you can take a picture of you or your surrounds, add filters, text and your message on the back, and the clever app people will print it and post it from your home country so it arrives quickly.
Your first one is free and you can also upload the postcard to Facebook for free. After your free trial a printed and delivered postcard costs £1.49 each, or buy multiple credits for discounts down to 99p per card.
Unfortunately something went wrong with my first order and my mum didn’t receive it whilst we were away so I emailed the developers and they sent it out again. When it eventually turned up my mum was delighted with it, especially because it was a picture of me stood in front of Budapest’s beautiful Chain Bridge at night.
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Freeprints – print your travel snaps
I love my photographs. I have many albums spanning all the years of my life and still love to get my photos printed every few months. So I was very taken with the 25 free prints per month (with only the postage to pay) promise of the Freeprints app. It is very easy and quick to use; you can select snaps directly from your phone or link it to your Facebook, Instagram and Flickr accounts. If they need some editing do it from your phone options then import them into the app as there is only the option to crop later.
If you divide the postage cost by the number of prints it works out around 10p a print and there are lots of other ways to earn more free prints by recommending friends and family. I’m waiting for my first order to arrive (5-10 working days)!
All apps above are available on the App Store and Google Play.
What are your favourite travel apps?
