Top 5 Free Apps For Travellers

These days you can find apps for almost anything, and here at Essential Travel we use the very best travel apps to make our trips more exciting and hassle-free; from planning your trip to staying safe while travelling and being able to communicate wherever you are in the world. Best of all, these apps are easy to use and free to download.

Tripit

No matter how much of an experienced traveller you may be, sometimes you need a helping hand when organising your trip. With all the times zones, dates, flight numbers and terminal information you have to remember, it can get a little confusing. Tripit, your very own personal travel organiser is a must-have travel companion. Just by forwarding an email with your travel confirmation details you can get your organised itinerary set out for you. All your travel plans are set out clearly in one place and on one device, no need for printouts, which we all know can get lost and are tedious to go through. Tripit even syncs your itinerary with your calendar to ensure your holiday is set out for you hassle free. To use Tripit all you need to do is sign up for an account, after emailing your confirmation emails and launching the app, your travel itinerary is automatically downloaded onto the app with all you need to know about your upcoming trip, as well as maps of the surrounding areas you will be travelling to.

• Suitable For: Android, Iphone and Blackberry
• Rating: 8/10

Your travel itinerary is set out for you

GateGuru

We’ve all experienced the stress of flying, whether it's trying to make your flight on time, dealing with a delayed flight or just simply trying to navigate through the airport to get to your correct gate number. GateGuru is an app you can download to make sure all your flight details are at your fingertips. It provides you with real time flight status information as well as push notifications in case of changes or updates. GateGuru also notifies you about airport travel checks and the estimated waiting time. And incase you missed breakfast or left your toothbrush at home, GateGuru gives you information about food and amenities, customised to your itinerary and which terminal of the airport you are at. And for those maze-inspired airports this app offers simple and clear maps of the airport to allow you to navigate around more easily. GateGuru covers 125 American airports,17 Canadian airports, 29 Asian airports, 31 European airports and 2 Australian airports. It also has a comprehensive list of airport reviews and ratings, as well as tips and pictures of whatever place you'll be travelling to.

• Suitable For: Android, Iphone
• Rating: 7/10

GateGuru lets you navigate through the airport easier

Google Translate

This app is absolutely invaluable when travelling abroad where you don’t speak the language and would still like to be able to order at a restaurant or bargain at the local market. Google Translate does just that, it translates words and phrases into various languages and best of all its simple and quick to use. This app lets you break down language barriers with over 60 languages supported through various input methods such as text, voice as well as handwriting. Although it is free to download, you need internet access to use the Google Translate function that speaks the translation out aloud. To use Google Translate offline you need to download the language packs for the language you want to translate, offline translations are available for 50 languages making translation easy wherever you are as you don't require Wifi or internet access. Google Translate also features a conversation mode that allows you to have a conversation with someone in a different language, there's no need for any bulky translation guides as it's all there on your smartphone.

• Suitable For: Android
• Rating: 8/10

No need for bulky language guides

Travel Safe

No one wants to think of the worst case scenario when travelling, but unfortunately these things are out of our control. Travel Safe is an app that has been put together to provide any emergency numbers that you may need when travelling to countries abroad. This app includes contact numbers for emergency services abroad such as police, ambulance, fire services as well as numbers to your embassy. By entering in the country you are from and the country you are travelling to this simple and easy to use app will give you all the information you would need to get assistance in an emergency. Travel Safe gives dialing code prefixes to each country and automatically picks up the users approximate location and best of all it does not require internet access to be able to work. Although this app might not contain any bells and whistles, it does exactly what it says and will most certainly come in handy if you are stuck in a foreign country and in need of emergency assistance. This app is free, although the added functionality of getting embassy numbers and a homepage widget is available on Travel Safe Pro for £0.99.

• Suitable For: Android
• Rating: 9/10

Access emergency services wherever you are

Simply Declare

What do you have to declare? This is one question every traveller is familiar with, making this an app that every traveller needs to have. Simply Declare lets you keep track of your travel purchases whilst abroad and lets you keep an eye on your duty free allowance by setting a limit and every time you enter a new purchase it is deducted from your set limit. By entering in your purchases Simply Declare will convert the currency in real time to your home currency price, so no confusing, last minute calculations necessary when filling out those declaration forms. Simply Declare makes it really easy to keep track of your purchases whilst travelling as you can even take snapshots of invoices and receipts to create an itemised list of all the items you purchased.

• Suitable For:Iphone, Ipad
• Rating: 9/10

Apps Available On Ipad, Iphone and other Smartphones

What's your favourite travel app? Let us know on our Facebook page.