If you decide to take a smartphone with you on your round-the-world (RTW) trip, here’s our selection of the best free apps to download before you set off.
Between 11th and 13th July 2019, we carried out a large survey amongst 645 RTW travellers where we asked them which apps they used whilst travelling. In this article, we’ll show you the 50 most popular apps. Find out more about our methodology
Uber exists in many countries, but travellers often use competing local apps that are cheaper. Here’s a list by country of those that were mentioned in our survey:
Help us expand this list by leaving us a comment at the bottom of the page.
BlaBlaCar is one of the leading car sharing apps. It connects drivers and passengers who don’t mind travelling together to split the cost of the trip. It’s used in more than 20 European countries.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Skyscanner is one of the best flight comparison sites. It allows you to see the price calendar for a flight over a whole month. This app is useful if you haven’t bought a RTW ticket or if you need to buy extra flights during your trip.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Kayak is another great flight comparison site. It offers a map search tool: you simply choose a departure city and a month (or a season or specific dates) and the tool shows you a world map with the cheapest ticket prices for each destination.
From Google Play
From the App Store
They let you buy a ticket, check-in online and follow the status of your flight.
Couchsurfing is a network of travellers who offer hospitality for free (although there’s now a small monthly fee to use the platform). With the app, you can search for contacts, send accommodation requests and chat with your future hosts.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Warmshowers works in the same way as Couchsurfing, with a community of people who offer free accommodation, but it’s specifically dedicated to cyclists.
From Google Play
Even if, most of the time, you find accommodation on arrival, Tripadvisor is extremely handy for finding reviews. You can also rate the places you’ve been to, to help other travellers.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Hostelworld is the number one app to find a hostel anywhere in the world. You can read reviews and book your bed through them.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Airbnb works pretty much on the same principle as Couchsurfing, except that you have to pay. Individuals offer to rent you a room in their home or their entire home when they’re away.
From Google Play
From the App Store
You might not need to use the Booking app that often during your trip, but it can still come in handy for booking a slightly more upmarket hotel from time to time.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Agoda is the same type of app as Booking, but specialises in accommodation in Asia. You can find great deals there to treat yourself every now and then in a fancy hotel for a ridiculously low price.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Maps.me is an app that uses data collected by OpenStreetMap to create maps that are available offline. OpenStreetMap data is crowdsourced, like Wikipedia.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Like Maps.Me, OsmAnd is an offline GPS app based on OpenStreetMap. It includes an altimeter and bus lines around the world. So, it’s convenient for walking around.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Google now covers almost the entire planet. You can download part of a map on your phone and access it offline: see the instructions
From Google Play
From the App Store
In most major cities around the world, you can download a public transport network app. It’s really convenient for walking around.
Rome2Rio shows you all the possible transport combinations to get from A to B, anywhere on the planet. It takes planes, trains, buses, ferries, carpooling and car rental into account.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Waze is a collaboration GPS. If you travel with your vehicle or rent one, you’ll be able to look at a route that takes live traffic, roadworks, speed cameras and accidents into account.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Polarsteps automatically records your route and creates a beautiful digital map, which you can then add thoughts, notes, photos and videos to along the way. At the end of your trip, you can buy a printed photo album.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Geocaching is a game which involves using your phone’s GPS to find or hide little “treasures” anywhere in the world. It’s great if you’re travelling with kids and want to join a worldwide treasure-hunting community.
From Google Play
From the App Store
iOverlander is a database for overland travellers. It includes campsites, accommodation, restaurants, garages and water and gas charging points.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Park4Night is a collaboration app that lets you find or share cool spots to stop at with your motorhome, campervan or van.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Campermate helps you find campsites, holding tank dump stations, accommodation, laundromats and free wifi spots in Australia and New Zealand.
From Google Play
From the App Store
WikiCamps is a collaboration app for finding or sharing campsites, holding tank dump stations and hostels in English-speaking countries. There are different WikiCamps apps for each of the five countries covered: Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada and the UK.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Your bank’s app allows you to regularly check your account balance, view transactions, do bank transfers from your savings account to top up your current account as you travel, and do bank transfers between your different banks if you have several.
If you’re travelling in a group, Tricount makes it easy to share your expenses with friends. Simply enter each expense, indicating who paid. The app then calculates the easiest way to balance the accounts and shows who owes how much money to whom.
From Google Play
From the App Store
XE Currency converts all currencies in the world. This app is really practical for planning your budget, doing your accounts and avoiding being scammed when exchanging your money.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Trabee Pocket is a great app for tracking your travel budget and your spending by category whilst travelling, and it automatically converts the total amounts into your home currency.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Paypal is accepted worldwide and can be used to pay for flights, accommodation and lots of other things whilst travelling.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Duolingo makes learning foreign languages fun.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Useful for translating texts into more than 55 languages and can be used offline.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Linguee is a dictionary that allows you to translate a number of languages. You can use it offline as well.
From Google Play
From the App Store
WhatsApp lets you send messages to or call your close friends and family. You can also send and receive photos, videos and vocal messages.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Facebook Messenger is the app to install if you want to use Facebook’s chat function on your mobile phone. As well as the chat function, it has the same features as SnapChat.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Skype allows you to make free calls over the internet, with or without video, to another phone that has the app or to a computer connected to the software.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Emails are still a really, really good way to stay in contact with your close ones when you’re travelling.
For posting your photos and keeping your friends and family up to date with your travels.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Instagram lets you share photos and videos taken with your smartphone, you can also tag them and leave comments.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Snapchat allows you to share photos and videos of your trip and add stickers and bitmojis to them.
From Google Play
From the App Store
For solo travellers, Tinder can be a great way to meet people around the world.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Google Drive lets you store your photos online and then access them from any computer.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Dropbox offers the same kind of online storage service as Google Drive.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Google Photos automatically backs up and organises your photos online, so you can free up space on your device. This service is free for an unlimited number of photos and videos.
From Google Play
From the App Store
If your camera is equipped with wifi and / or bluetooth, the app will let you transfer your photos to your smartphone, take photos remotely and geotag them.
With Spotify, it’s free to listen to artists, albums or playlists of your choice on shuffle mode. If you want to listen to songs of your choice, without ad breaks, or download music to listen to offline, you need to get Spotify Premium.
From Google Play
From the App Store
With Deezer, you can listen to music for free, but with ad breaks. Again, if you want to listen without ad breaks or download music to listen to offline, you need to get Deezer Premium.
From Google Play
From the App Store
When you hear a song you don’t know, Shazam can identify it for you. You’ll come back from your trip with a playlist of songs from all around the world.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Of course, you don’t go to the other side of the world to watch series, but during a long trip, on rainy days, sometimes you just want to do nothing at all. With Netflix, you have access to a huge selection of films and series.
From Google Play
From the App Store
The SmartTraveler app, from the US Department of State, provides real-time safety information for each country. It also allows you to access the State Department’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP). This is a free service that assists you in emergencies like natural disasters, terrorists attacks…
From Google Play
From the App Store
A VPN will allow you to get around firewalls in dictatorships where censorship denies access to certain websites. It also allows you to protect your personal information when using public wifi. This app also protects your passwords and private information from unsecure websites, malware and phishing attacks. It’s free for 30 days. To avoid paying, you can uninstall it before the end of the trial period and install another one with a trial period.
From Google Play
From the App Store
Refill helps you find places where you can fill your bottle for free or for a small price. In this way, you don’t have to buy plastic bottles and you’ll reduce waste.
From Google Play
From the App Store
With Happy Cow, you can find vegetarian or vegan restaurants all around the world.
From Google Play
From the App Store
