Once you know what you want to do, sometimes just figuring out what it takes to do it can be paralyzing. Here are some apps that helped me get my shit together and figure out how to take my head out of my ass. Weird image, just forget it.
Xe Currency Exchange
I’m an English major, you do the math. But really, who can convert currencies all the time? Even given the EU, I used five different currencies as I travelled, and this app helped give me an idea of how much 200 Czech korunas is in real money or what to expect once I change my folding money at the exchange booth at the airport (hint: don’t do it there) (hint II: no one wants your coins, so spend them all before you leave the country or end up with ziplock sacks full of foreign coinage like me).
Yandex Translate
Also like me, maybe you don’t speak any language other than English. There are a quadrillion translation apps out there, and a lot of them are terrible. The most useful one I found is Yandex Translate, which helped with French, German, Dutch, and Spanish. These are just the languages I used—there are loads others. Download the languages you’ll be using and you can translate from there to English and back. It was useful to review some basic words on the train before I arrived somewhere—please, thank you, hello, goodbye, and English were about all I could handle—but people seemed to appreciate even that small effort. Most of the people I encountered spoke at least a little English, but it can’t be taken for granted that wherever you go, people will know what you’re saying. This app was also ace at helping me translate street names, words on menus, and directions. The other two translation apps I used are Google Translate and iThinkdiff Czech Dictionary.
Rail Planner
Of all the apps, this one was probably the most crucial to the success (… er, completion?) of my trip. This is the app Interrail and Eurail users are advised to download to track and plan train times, and it doesn’t require wifi. You don’t have to actually have a Eurail pass to use this train app, so if you are just looking to ride the rails one day, this is still for you; just throw in your starting point and ending point, date and time of travel, and get the relevant train schedules. Now, this was NOT helpful when the trains were on strike. Also, you cannot buy or reserve train tickets via the app (so, so annoying). Because of this, you have to do a reality check about whether the trains are a) actually running and b) sold out. It gave me a ball park idea about my schedule though, and what to aim for when I went to the long distance/international tickets booth at the train station to reserve tickets. If the clerk didn’t speak English (common, though Eurail would have you believe otherwise—bleg!), I could easily bring up the schedule I wanted on the app for the clerk to view. If there was no room on that train (uncommon but it did happen), I could easily modify my search to a slightly different time and have the clerk check again. You could also filter results by direct trains (no layovers) and view which trains were high speed. Another feature I didn’t notice at first was that once you select a schedule, you can view each stop between your departure and destination. This was helpful to me because I like to watch each stop go by and confirm and double confirm that I am indeed on the right train. You may call this a bit obsessive, but it helped when my father put us on the fast track to the north pole on accident. I was able to confirm and double confirm that he was totally wrong and then find another train. I was in charge of all trains from then on. Also, this app includes long distance bus schedules.
Uber
Uber is not a company I want to exalt, but for sheer convenience sometimes it can’t be beat. When you don’t speak the language, calling a taxi is even more intimidating than usual. With Uber, you can type in your destination (or paste it from Yelp) and wait for your ride. Now, Uber only works if you have wifi at the pick up point, so you might have to find a Starbucks or McDonald’s to start from. But after a long day of walking, sometimes you just want to Uber your ass back to your hotel/Airbnb/friend’s couch. Now, Uber does not operate everywhere. Uber was banned in Germany during my time there, and the articles I read about it suggested using MyTaxi app instead. BEWARE! You have to have wifi at both the pickup AND drop off locations. I didn’t have wifi at my drop off location, which happened to be a park, and I had to pay in cash on the spot—not what I had planned! People always say “don’t carry a lot of cash” but honestly had I not always been carrying a significant amount of money with me, I would have been screwed several times (credit card getting declined, restaurant not accepting any credit cards, etc.).
TripIt
I read about Tripit while researching what apps are good to have as you travel. I ended up purchasing the pro version of this app—something I almost never do. TripIt is an itinerary organizer. You forward your confirmation emails (flight, hotel, airbnb, event tickets) to plans@tripit.whatever, and the app organizes your information. All your confirmation codes, addresses, and contact info is in one area. Once you download the app, you can access your travel info offline. The pro feature keeps you updated on gate changes for your flight and other last minute alerts. You can also share your itinerary with your friends, so they can easily look up your flight number to see if yours was the plane that crashed. Tripit was a great substitute for my usual hard-copy folder full of confirmation emails (a system I still prefer but could not maintain without a printer), and though it required intermittent wifi, I never failed to figure out how to use it. I still use it now just to organize my hotel reservations back here in reality.
City Mapper
For getting around in London, City Mapper is the app to use. It has other cities as well, but I used it only for London, and it helped me navigate the buses and underground. Like Rail Planner, you can put in your starting and ending points and get suggestions for how to get there. London is HUGE, so be prepared to take a bus to the underground to another bus to another bus, but all the while you can track your progress on City Mapper. Wifi is needed though, so I took a screen shot of the route to refer to. Also, you have to have an Oyster card to ride the bus, so look into how to get one of those before you hop on a double decker. Individual tickets for the underground can be purchased at ticket kiosks though, so go nuts, but mind the gap.
Health
There’s an app that comes with the iPhone that is called “health” and has a heart icon. This was fun only in that it tracked how far I walked. At first it was interesting to see what a change it was from my real life, but eventually I learned that after six miles, I was pretty much done, so I could make decisions on where I wanted to go based on how far I’ve come, and at what point I will poop out. Know your limits and all that.
Lonely Planet Guides
I occasionally used Lonely Planet Guides for ideas on what to do. Many times there were things not mentioned by TripAdvisor or Yelp, notably Faust House in Prague, but mostly this app would be useful to someone planning far in advance. My on-the-go day-by-day w-t-f planning didn’t dovetail with the lay out of this app, though it is very pretty and informative.
Apps I thought I’d Use But Didn’t
I did a lot of research about what apps to download prior to my trip, and these two were suggested again and again.
SmartTraveler
This is an app probably put out by the US government to help Americans as they travel. You select a country and then can find the embassies and consulate offices there along with safety information. It is a very dry read. I considered using it once when I thought I might have to contact my embassy when my debit card got stolen, but thankfully I didn’t have to handle it that way. It’s not a bad app to have, just in case.
Rick Steves Audio Europe
How annoying is Rick Steves? I listened to several podcasts from this app before I left, but found them lacking in both entertainment and informational value. Maybe if you have loads, and I mean loads, of time to plan, you can slash your way through all these podcasts, but reading his Europe through The Back Door was more than enough. He sounds like a morning person who has never been delayed by a hair emergency. I just can’t deal with that type of person.
There were several apps that I deleted along the way due to their utter uselessness, but I can’t remember what they were. Good luck out there in the app store!
paralyzedbynotcaring 