Field Notes

The 8 Apps I Open on Every Travel Day

I counted once. My phone has about 120 apps on it. On a day when I’m actually moving, getting from one city to the next, I open eight of them.

These are the apps that survived two years of me deleting things I didn’t use. I’ve put them in the order I open them on a typical travel day.

1. Flighty, before I leave the room

Flighty tracks every flight I’m on. It tells me about delays before the airline does, shows which gate to head to, and warns me if my inbound plane is running late. That last one is the useful one. If the plane that’s supposed to fly me hasn’t left its last airport yet, I know I’m not leaving on time either.

It has a free version. I pay for the full one because I fly a lot. If you fly a few times a year, the free one is enough.

2. Grab, to get to the airport

In Southeast Asia, Grab is the app for rides, and food delivery too. The price is fixed before you get in, so there’s no haggling and no meter “accidentally” left off. In other places, the same job goes to Uber, Bolt or a local equivalent. I download whichever one the country uses before I land.

3. Wise, at the airport

Wise is my travel money. It’s a card and an app that holds different currencies at close to the market exchange rate. I top it up from my home bank and spend in the local currency.

I open it at the airport to check the exchange rate and move money into the new currency. Then I take out a small amount of cash at an ATM, because some places still only take cash. Street food, tuk-tuks, the bus station toilet.

4. Google Maps, everywhere

Nobody needs me to explain Google Maps. But I use it differently when I travel. I star everything: the hotel, the bus station, a pharmacy, two cafés. Starred places show up offline, which matters more than you’d think. I wrote about the whole offline maps setup here.

5. Google Translate, for menus and signs

Camera mode is the feature I use most. Point the phone at a menu, and the words change on the screen. It’s not perfect. In Hanoi, it translated one dish as “happy rice.” But it gets me close enough to point and order.

Download the offline language pack before you arrive. Then it works with no signal at all.

6. Airalo, when I cross a border

My eSIM app. I open it on the plane, in the last 20 minutes, to install the plan for the next country. By the time I land, I have data.

7. WhatsApp, for everything else

Most of the world runs on WhatsApp. Hotels, tour guides, the guy who rents scooters, the guesthouse owner who wants to know what time I’ll arrive. I’ve booked boats, rearranged airport pickups and argued about a laundry bill, all over WhatsApp.

It also replaces phone calls. I haven’t made a regular phone call abroad in about two years.

8. Booking.com, at the end of the day

I book most stays a day or two ahead, and Booking.com is where I do it. It has the widest choice in the places I go, and free cancellation on most rooms. That lets me book something safe early, then change it if I find a better place.

The ones I deleted

These sounded useful and weren’t, for me:

• Trip planner apps. I tried three. I never kept them updated. My Notes app and a few starred places in Google Maps do the same job.
• Currency converter apps. Wise shows me the rate already. One less app.
• Separate airline apps. I used to keep one per airline. Now my boarding passes go in Apple Wallet and Flighty does the tracking.

The test

Every few months, I scroll through my phone. If I haven’t opened a travel app in my last two trips, I delete it. Same idea as the replacement test for my bag. Anything I wouldn’t miss, I shouldn’t be carrying, even if it weighs nothing.