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Who doesn’t like to travel? According to the U.S. Travel Association, spending by resident and international travelers in the U.S. averaged $2.7 billion a day, $113.1 million an hour, $1.9 million a minute, and $31,400 a second in 2016. People spent $683.1 billion on leisure travel, and $307.2 billion on business travel. U.S. residents had 1.7 billion trips for leisure purposes and 457.4 million business trips in 2016.
Travel planning can be stress-free and fun with the help of technology. Luckily, there are apps that can assist you in all your travel needs, from booking a hotel to picking up a new language.
The tools we share in this blog post will help you save time and money when traveling. We have used these apps to plan multiple road trips, weekend getaways, business trips, and family staycations in the United States. They were equally helpful, and sometimes indispensable while traveling internationally to countries like Mexico, Canada, Italy, Switzerland, and Turkey.
1. Hotels.com
We like hotels.com because it makes it so easy to find hotel deals anywhere. You can enter a specific address that you would like to stay close to, and the search engine will sort all available hotels and arrange them conveniently in terms of distance. It will arrange searches by distance to city center by default. You can read reviews of hundreds of other people who stayed in that hotel before making your choice.
Hotels.com offers heavily discounted rooms virtually anywhere. Moreover, every time you book a room, you earn reward points. When you collect 10 nights, you get one free night of equal or lesser value. You can use your free nights later, wherever you want. I have 3 free nights accumulated on my account now. They will come in handy during Thanksgiving travel season, or I might use earlier for a weekend getaway with my husband. Go ahead and explore hotels.com and don’t forget to set up an account before booking your stay.
2. Roadtrippers
Roadtrippers allows you to plan a trip with multiple stops. You can save your trip guide and access it on the go. Instead of printing out your itineraries and taking them with you, you can easily plan your entire journey on your computer or phone and adjust your trip details later in real time. Your trip guides are saved in your account and can be accessed from your phone or iPad on the go. When you are exploring a new location, Roadtrippers lets you search thousands of trip guides created by other people. It’s another way to explore the area and plan your trip.
3. Waze
Waze is the best app for optimizing your drive in real time. It will make your road trip a breeze! It’s another app with a strong sense of community. Waze users report traffic updates, police cars, accidents, hazard on the road, traffic cameras, and road closures. Read our review of Waze to learn more.
4. Maps.me
Maps.me is a great offline map app for worldwide travelers. The app works even when you don’t have cellular data or wi-fi. You just have to download maps of the area or country you are planning to visit. When you are finished exploring the area, delete the maps you no longer need. You can add locations to the map to help other travelers, bookmark locations, share your location with friends, and find walking, biking, or driving directions between locations.
5. Airbnb
Airbnb is gaining popularity in big cities, as well as in rural areas. Its secret is in making a connection between those who are looking to rent their homes and those who are looking for accommodations worldwide. It helps people travel domestically and internationally on a budget and feel at home anywhere they go.
Since you are staying at someone’s home or apartment, you will typically have access to the kitchen. It helps to save money on eating out and adds an extra level of comfort. Needless to say, renting with Airbnb is often much cheaper than renting a hotel room. Often, there is a one-time cleaning fee, regardless of how many days you stay. I noticed that some owners offer a discount if your length of stay is longer than a certain number of days.
We stayed at Airbnb during our recent trip to Los Angeles and Las Vegas. It is a great way to cut your hotel bills, especially if you are traveling with a large group. In Las Vegas, the condo we stayed in had access to the pool at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, which was very nice. Here is our affiliate link to join Airbnb, that will give you $40 off your next stay. This coupon code will never expire, so you can just sign up now and it will be on your account when you are ready to plan your trip in the future.
6. Hopper
If you need to book a flight, Hopper is a great ticket price analyzer. The app tracks thousands of flights and analyzes the data to determine if now is a good time to book. Price prediction provides you with an estimated timeframe of when the ticket prices for your selected destination are going to increase and by how much. I found this app thanks to this article by Andrew Villagomez at National Geographic Travel digital. I traveled quite a bit this summer, so having this app on my phone was very helpful.
7. Duolingo
Duolingo is a free app for learning a new language. It has dozens of languages and offers fun and interactive exercises at various levels of language proficiency. The exercises are broken down into small chunks by topic. With some pre-planning, you can pick up the basics of a new language in a few months by studying 15 minutes a day.
8. Google Translate
It’s always a good idea to learn at least a few basic conversational phrases in a language of the country you are planning to visit. The locals will appreciate your effort! Google Translate app can help you to translate menu options and even maintain a conversation with a local. You can either type or speak the phrase you need to translate in the app. I could easily maintain a conversation with my Turkish nephew using Google translate. He has been taking English classes in the last few years. So we don’t need to use a phone as an intermediary anymore.
9. Yelp
Yelp is a good app for finding restaurants and other businesses in a city you are visiting. User reviews will help you to make the right choice. You can also contribute your own reviews and photos.
10. TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor is helpful if you want to discover a new area. I always go to “Things To Do” in a city, when I want to find local attractions and sightseeing opportunities. Attractions are ranked from most recommended by travelers to least recommended. You can read reviews for restaurants, hotels, and places you are planning to visit. You can also add reviews for places you have visited and help other travelers to plan their travels.
Bonus Money Saving Tips
- If you are going to a major city, you can save a significant amount by buying a CityPASS. It gives travelers a chance to explore the city on a budget. All the top attractions are typically included in one pass. Currently, CityPASS is available in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Southern California, Tampa Bay, and Toronto. I used a CityPASS for a family vacation in Atlanta a few years ago. Everyone was happy to enjoy the attractions and save some money to enjoy the local food scene.
- Speaking of food, don’t forget to check Groupon for hot deals at local restaurants. We used Groupon several times on a recent vacation to Las Vegas. It gives you a chance to try new places without overspending.

Steps for the advice, I will use some on them on my next trip. I travel for race most every weekend during summer. I look forward to reading more of your blogs in the future.
Great list! But booking is one of the most useful ones, too. 🙂
Very true! Thanks! There are so many useful travel websites and apps. We might need another round 😉
Great tips, great post, great inforgraphic- love it all!
Thank you, Tisha!
Great post! I have two more app suggestions: makemytrip and trivago. These are widely used in India:)
Thanks for the suggestions, Bhumi!
I have been using most of them and some are quiet new for me. Thanks for sharing the list will be quiet helpful for me.
Heraa, awesome! We are so glad it’s helpful for you.
This is really useful, thanks! I use most these apps but had never heard of hopper which might come in very useful considering how many flights I book!
Thanks, Star! Hopper is a great source of information when you need to book flights often. Safe travels!
Great list I definitely use Yelp and TripAdvisor. Booking.com is also a go to for hotels.
Thanks, Jo! TripAdvisor is one of my favorites when it comes to organizing activities. Thanks for mentioning Booking.com! I use it often too.
The post is very much informative. We mostly use makemytrip.com for making travel planning. We go through all the links and I really like the roadtrippers site. I will use it for my next tour planning.
Nice! I have to check makemytrip.com. You are going to love Roadtrippers. I used it to plan several two-week road trips on the East coast.
Right post at the right time! This one really helped me alot! I had a long trip this year and I was pondering over where to look up for some hotels. Thanks!
Perfect! We’re glad it was helpful to you.
I use some of these apps and they are great! I can suggest TripIt, it’s a free app that stores all your travel documents and bookings under one place, creating itineraries with your hotel reservations, flights and bus tickets. It’s brilliant.
Thanks for the suggestion, Joanna! It is a good one too!
Wow. $31,400 a second is a ridiculous amount! I don’t think we’ve ever gone anywhere without consulting the reviews and forums on Trip Advisor. And once we’re in the area, Yelp is super helpful too!
Joline, I know! This has been our process as well. And Hotels.com has been a life saver so many times to book affordable hotels wherever we went. I even used one of my free nights to book a hotel room for my wedding photographer, who was out of town and needed a room.
Wow! This is quite helpful. Few of these apps, I already have on my iPad but I have never used Duplingo. I am going to download it right now. I love to learn new languages…at least basic level! 🙂
Mayuri, me too! Language provides a window into a different culture. I started to learn Turkish and Spanish with Duolingo when I was visiting Turkey and Mexico last year. It actually goes from a very basic to advanced level. I might refresh my French skills at some point.
Wow! This is a great tips! It is very useful apps to those who are planning for a travel.
Thanks, Margarette! These are my go-to resources when planning a trip. There are many more travel booking and travel planning solutions out there.
This is such a great tips. Nowadays, there’s so many useful apps and website to help us. Will definitely check the list you said.
Elizabeth, thank you! These apps can simplify travel planning process so much.
I always like this list articles with useful resources for different purposes. I am well aware of Airbnb and Google translator but other than these two all are new to me and will give them a try for sure. Thanks for sharing it.
Thanks, Alok! I always check Airbnb and hotels.com first when booking accommodations. Between the two of them, there are always several great options to choose from.
I actually use most of these but will have to give Waze a go!
I love airbnb which is always my go to travel app for cheap/ last minute accomodation on the go.
And Skyscanner for flights!
Lizzie, that’s great! Waze is so helpful for long road trips or long commutes. It tells you if there is a police car ahead, road construction, or traffic accident. So you know what to expect. It has many other options, like searching for a gas station with the cheapest gas and so on. I didn’t know about Skyscanner. Thanks for the suggestion!
Great list! My favorite one is actually booking.com. I always find the best deals there.
xoxo,
Gabi
Thanks, Gabi! Of course! How did we miss booking.com?! 🙂
All apps are very useful like TripAdvisor, Booking.com and Google Translate. Other apps I don’t use a lot but will try now. Thanks for sharing!
Yukti, that’s great! Thanks for reading!
These are all great apps. I use them every time I travel. Although I stopped using Waze once google bought them out and incorporated all their stuff into Google Maps.
Jen, thanks! It’s a good point about Waze.
I’ve been looking forward on this, I will allot time to download applications for travel it will surely be a great a help.
All of these apps look super helpful, I have just used Hotels.com from these; I also like to use Rome2Rio sometimes. Thanks for sharing this. 🙂
Aditi, we are glad this list is helpful to you. Rome2Rio sounds helpful to build itineraries. Thanks for the suggestion!
Thanks for sharing the list , awesome infographics
Thanks, Anastasia!