Remember the days when everyone traveled with huge paper maps, communicated with foreigners with the help of phrase books, and looked for accommodation by ads in local newspapers? Now the big maps are reduced to icons, and multi-volume dictionaries take up no more than 300 megabytes of memory. And it all fits in our pocket.
Wikimapia
Wikimapia is a map where everyone can mark a location and leave a description, comments and photos. So here you can find unofficial landmarks, abandoned beaches and many interesting places that are not on regular maps – and all this often with comments from other users to help you decide if this place is worth your attention or not.
Moreover, there are secret paths and unconventional trails, which are especially useful in natural terrain. There is no offline connection here, and in general, a map can be quite slow to load from a smartphone, although Wikimapia finds your geolocation very accurately, as well as the direction.
OsmAnd
OsmAnd is based on data from Open Street Maps, a mapping project that many professional travelers know. Maps on the OSM platform are considered some of the most accurate – they are used by the United Nations, Wikipedia, and the U.S. President’s website. You can also study the map on the website, but it’s more convenient to keep it in the app.
TravelMoney
If you’ve wanted a financier to do your bookkeeping on vacation, your dream has come true. TravelMoney is the best choice for the frugal, as it’s as easy to use as betting at 22 Bet. Of course, the app will not decide for you whether you need to buy another magnet. But it will show you how much you already spent, and analyze what you spent it on.
BringFido
This tool comes in handy for those who travel with pets – especially dogs. You can find everything from hotels to restaurants to places to stay that accept pets. It is especially handy when searching for lodging: it tells you right away if a pet is required, how many dogs are allowed in the room and of what size.
Windguru
One of the best weather services originally created for surfers. First, it is fairly accurate, so if you care about the weather where you are going – Windguru can be navigated quite confidently. It will warn you about possible cyclones, winds, rain, snow and other things.
Secondly, it has the most complete information about the atmospheric situation: wind speed and direction, wind gusts, temperature, cloudiness, precipitation, and wave levels. Different measurement systems can be set, for example the wind speed is shown in knots but can be changed to meters per second, kilometers per hour, miles per hour and even Beaufort Scale.
Tripadvisor
The Tripadvisor website is familiar to most tourists as a hotel aggregator. But using the app, you’ll find options for recreation and entertainment is even more convenient, because on the smartphone screen the interface looks like a social networking feed.
Cultural, educational, and gastronomic institutions and events are divided into categories and ranked by visitors’ ratings. You enter a query, and the system selects suitable offers taking into account your preferences. If you have questions, you can ask other travelers or venues directly. Then you only need to add the place you like to your itinerary.
Park4night
This app is a kind of social network for motorists, and helps those who get lost in new places. You can use it to find a place to stay overnight, find a camping site, and leave feedback for future travelers.
Wifi Map
Wifi Map will save your already expensive Internet traffic when you travel. The task of the program is to find spots with free Wi-Fi access. But it doesn’t have to be public places. The principle of the application is to add Wi-Fi points on the map so that the next traveler can use the network.
Wifi Map gives you the ability to filter points by signal speed. If you select the “fast wi-fi” option, the app will mark places on the map where data transfer is at least 1.0 Mbps. The program remembers your last connections and informs you when you approach an access point. In addition, it generates a list of the most popular networks among users.
