IN YOUR HANDS
10 Best Travel Apps

DIGITAL TRAVEL
Easier Travel in the Palm of Your Hand

Technology and travel apps changed the way we travel.

We can stay connected, share images and information, check in digitally, check flights, book hotels, arrange transportation and so much more at the click of a button.

While our mobile phones are a wonderful way to document and share our experiences with friends and family back home, there are also many more ways we can benefit from the many travel apps now available to us. 

Your Rothschild Travel Designer will handcraft an itinerary for you that will encompass every aspect of your journey and you will always be in good hands, but there is no harm in being prepared. This collection of ten highly useful travel apps will keep all your essential information close to hand, guide you through your travel experiences and even help you pack your bags!

No matter where you may be planning to visit on your next vacation, take the time to browse ten of my favorite travel apps and download them to help you travel better.

Vamoos

We at Rothschild Safaris pride ourselves on the depth and extent of our planning of your itinerary and continual support throughout your journey. However, the more detail, the more paperwork, and it can be frustrating rifling through reams of print-outs to find the one piece of paper you are after.

Vamoos solves this problem and offers us even more opportunity to give you the impeccable service for which we are renowned. Rolling out for our clients in 2022, this wonderful travel app allows us to create a customized catalog of all your vital travel details. From your itinerary to points of interest along your route and even the local weather, this app is your personal Rothschild concierge, with you every step of the way. 

Receive notifications on all your travel arrangements, message us directly, view your route and collect all your essential documents in one place. Better yet, there is no need for you to do anything. We will collate all information for you – all you need to do is download the travel app and enter your private login details to access all your travel information right in the palm of your hand.

Flighty

No matter how well you plan your vacation, your flights serve a will of their own. Delayed departures, changed gates and other hindrances can conjure unforeseen predicaments or, at the very least, considerable consternation.

With Flighty you are afforded a direct line to air traffic control, giving you prior warning of changes, delays or relocations. This may not speed up your flight or overcome your boredom when faced with an unexpected five-hour airport intermission, but Flighty does keep you in the loop, which can be particularly useful if your flight is unexpectedly relocated to the other end of the terminal.

Google Maps

While your native map app may be excellent at getting you safely from A to B, Google Maps is the gold standard of mapped information. It can offer everything from historical facts to restaurant guides and the nearest public conveniences. Though somewhat obsolete in the middle of the Maasai Mara, if you are planning any weekends in the city during your itinerary, Google Maps will allow you to wander the stress and discover the city like a true local.

Google Translate

English is rapidly becoming a universal language and, no matter where you go, you can usually find an English-speaking staff member or local to assist you in your communications. However, there may be times when you might find yourself without the benefit of a translator, or when you may need to interpret written words. 

Google Translate is the ideal travel app to offer the translation for written or spoken words, allowing you to type or speak directly into your phone to immediately receive the interpretation. Even better, the camera option immediately scans and translates text in real-time, right onto your phone screen. Simply point your phone’s camera at a piece of foreign text and the app automatically detects and translates for you. With over 100 languages available, you will always be able to communicate, wherever you are.

DuoLingo

If you are a traveler who prefers a more completely immersive experience, few things can expand your opportunities more than learning a new language. Though almost all destinations will offer English-speaking staff and little need for your multilingual talents, a few well-spoken phrases and small understanding of the local language can be incredibly powerful. 

The DuoLingo travel app offers fun, simple lessons for more conversational phrases to help you learn some linguistic fundamentals prior to your vacation. With 12 primary languages and hundreds of dialects, you couldn’t be expected to learn every African tongue. But with Swahili amongst its free courses, and French and Portuguese available to help you in the Seychelles, Mozambique and other colonial regions, DuoLingo is a simple way to educate yourself before you depart.

Amount

A currency converter is essential on an overseas excursion. Even if you aren’t on a budget as such, when bartering in the markets of Nairobi or considering extra-curricular activities it is good to know the asking price in your own currency. Amount offers up-to-the-minute currency conversions plus lots more.

Converting any amount, this app also gives you valuable translations of distance, weight, volume and much more, so you’ll always be on top of the imperial – metric conundrum.

FindPenguins

No – this isn’t a flightless bird tracker! 

Every journey is unique and the memories you create are precious. FindPenguins allows you to document every step of that journey, tracking your movements, adding your photos and journaling your experiences to create a wonderful digital account of your entire itinerary. 

The travel app records your route, even without internet, and allows you to insert photos of your travels and write your thoughts and notes as you go. 

What’s more, the FindPenguins service even allows you to order a physical, printed book of your adventures when you return, so you don’t have to refer back to the app every time you wish to recall your trip of a lifetime. We always highly recommend that you journal your travels, and FindPenguns is a simple, beautiful and complete way to do so.

Mobile Passport

Few things are more arduous than returning home after a long-haul flight and having to spend hours in customs and passport queues. Though not a replacement for your still-necessary physical passport, Mobile Passport fast-tracks your immigration process when returning home, overcoming all necessary paperwork and allowing you to use the rapid Mobile Passport Control lanes at over 30 air a dn cruise ports across the U.S.

Appicable for all U.S. citizens, Mobile Passport has been declared “the best-kept secret in air travel” by the Washington Post and take much of the effort out of your return home.

PackPoint Travel Packing List

Not only does PackPoint help you to remember all your necessary items when packing your bags, it even generates an advisory list for you, based on your destination, the weather and the activities you will be undertaking.

By adding dates, locations and so on, this wonderful travel app will create a list of recommended items and the number of each, based on your trip’s duration. 

Once established, you can then add items, customize your list and check items off as you pack them to ensure that absolutely nothing gets forgotten in the pre-vacation chaos!

EverNote

Benjamin Franklin once declared that “by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” EverNote brings preparation into the 21st Century, with this advanced note-taking facility allowing to you create notes, schedules and to-do lists, including links, documents, photos and more.

EverNote is a valuable business tool but also a wonderful way to curate a vacation, especially with a larger group, allowing you to concisely bring all the pieces of the puzzle together in one convenient place. You can share your notes with others and across multiple devices. For example, once you have created your lists or notes on your desktop computer, you can then access them on your phone or share with others for them to add to, edit or review.

Your itinerary, boarding passes, travel advice and much more information can all be added to your account, so you won’t have to access multiple locations to have all the necessary information at your fingertips.

There are so many variables in even the most well-crafted vacation. By implementing a handful of useful apps, you only ever need to reach for your phone to find the answers, documents or advice for all of your travel needs. What’s more, these superb apps will help you gain the very most of every step of your journey and avoid that common traveler panic of wondering where their essential information is located.

Download some or all of these apps before your next vacation and let the technology take care of the rest.