Technology has revolutionized traveling and travel planning just like anything else in the last few years.  There are various mobile applications that makes your travel planning process easier and your travels more enjoyable. From flight and hotel booking apps to review apps which help exploration more fun, you have hundreds of options to choose from.

Here is my top list of mobile applications for planning trips, exploring the area and getting around. Just don’t forget to clean up your phone’s storage before your travels in order to avoid the unnecessary stress.

To Plan:

Booking.com:

Even though I generally compare prices of hotels from a few different websites, Booking.com is the only one when it comes to a mobile application. Easy to use and provides a messaging system with the hotel itself. Pretty competitive hotel rates if you are a Genius member too.

Airbnb:

If you like to stay away from touristic areas and find a remote place to stay, you may want to check out Airbnb.  Offering unique homes or rooms, you can rent unique places to stay from local hosts in 191+ countries.

Skyscanner:

As number of choices increase, the flight booking process gets more complicated. However with Skyscanner, you can compare the prices of many airlines from one destination to another. Also by selecting ‘Flexible (Everywhere)’ as a destination country, you can also decide where to go depending on the flight rates.

TripAdvisor:

I use TripAdvisor both as a meta search engine to find the best rate of a single hotel I’m searching for, or to read about the reviews of specific destinations and hotels. If you have a specific question like ‘how to get to X Hotel from the X Airport’, write it on forums and you will get responses in less than a day.

Weather and Money:

AccuWeather:

Stay connected to the latest weather conditions with AccuWeather. It gives you minute-by-minute information on upcoming conditions for your exact location as well as video updates, details on humidity, UV, wind speed, clouds, pressure, sunrise and sunset times.

Oanda Currency Converter:

Oanda uses an easy interface that gives you access to daily filtered rates for more than 190 currencies. It is a must have app with an easy user interface.

To Explore:

Foursquare:

Foursquare is an app that shows you restaurants, bars, shops, beaches, points of interests and even the trending places that are close by or in the destination you are searching for. If you like, you can create lists before your travels and see their locations on a single map. This will help you save time from searching for where to go and discover the best places by seeing the ratings and reviews left by others.

One alternative to Foursquare is Yelp which is pretty common in the U.S.

TripIt

This is a dream app for organizers. TripIt shows all your trip details at a glance: flights, hotels, car, map, directions all in one place. And all you need to do is to connect your emails with the app so that it grabs the travel information automatically from your booking confirmations in e-mails.

To Get Around:

Uber:

There is Uber in many countries and it’s a life saver if you don’t speak the language of that country. It may not be available in all countries so here are the alternative apps to Uber in different countries:

• EasyTaxi – Available in 30 countries
• Careem – Qatar and UAE
• Lyft – USA
• Hailo – UK, Spain, Ireland, Japan and Singapore
• LeCab – Paris
• BiTaksi – Istanbul
• Ingogo – Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane
• Cabify – Columbia, Mexico, Chile, Peru and Spain
• Grab (GrabTaxi) –  Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia

Google Maps:

Google Maps is a must have app as you actually don’t need to have an internet connection to use it. Once the satellite locates you, you can turn your roaming off and navigate like a pro. It is pretty accurate and easy to use.

Which travel apps do you use the most? Write in the comments below.