It’s hard to believe summer is already almost here. But alas, with almost half the year already behind us, it’s almost time for many of us to book a vacation and head to a beach, catch a flight overseas, or just get away for a few nights for a short trip to unwind.
Though it’s always nice to turn off the phone and unplug on vacation, we can’t deny the convenience of having a smartphone in-hand on longer trips. With that in mind, we thought we’d kick off summer with a list of 5 of the best apps we’ve found for making the most of your summer vacation.
Here are 5 of our favorite apps for the upcoming summer season:
- Roadtrippers: If you’re planning a road trip, you owe it to yourself to download Roadtrippers. It’s a map tool that allows you to set destinations with key waypoints along the way. It’s easy to change your route on the fly, and is much more feature-rich than Google or Apple Maps for road trips. Keep this in your pocket if you want to explore the open road rather than just get straight to a destination.
- Skyscanner: Not taking a road trip? That’s okay—if you want to fly to your vacation destination, you’d have a hard time finding a better app than Skyscanner. The app lets you browse and book flights, much like Kayak or Priceline. In our experience, though, it shows more airline options, and often at better prices.
- Google Translate: Heading to a foreign country where you don’t speak the language? Don’t go without Google Translate. You can translate between 103 languages by typing (including 52 languages with no Internet) and can use your camera to translate text in 29 languages. This is an invaluable tool should your vacation take you to a far away country.
- PackPoint: On its surface, PackPoint is just another app to help you create a packing list. Dig deeper, though, and it becomes clear it’s much more than that. Depending on your trip length, where you’re going, and what you’ll do on your trip, PackPoint provides custom recommendations for what you should pack. It’s a packing list on steroids.
- Sworkit: Sure, you may be on vacation, but that doesn’t mean you have to skip your workout. If you’re a fitness buff and want to get a workout or two in from a remote hotel, Sworkit is a great tool. It provides customized workouts tailored to your needs—and it’s vacation friendly because you don’t need any equipment other than yourself.
No matter where you find yourself on vacation this summer, we think these apps should give you a helping hand. We still have fun ‘roughing it’ without the help of our smartphones every once in a while, but as a mobile application management company, we have a hard time resisting the allure of helpful apps like these.
Do you have an app you’d like to see added to this list, or questions about any of our recommendations? Leave us a comment and let us know your thoughts!
good list!