Looking for ways to make traveling easier? These are the top 20 Travel Apps you need to explore Europe! It’s got everything from travel planning, buying tickets, avoiding queues, conquering public transportation, and even finding bathrooms! All apps are available for both iPhones & Android systems. Note if there is no main page link I’ve linked the iPhone link, but you can google the Android/Google Play version as well.
Trip Planning Apps
Use these apps to help plan your trips, keep info handy, and get around locations.
Trip Advisor – Free, has offline access to reviews, local area guides, & maps. Make sure to download the local area guide for your destination before leaving home.
Visit A City – Free, create a free custom itinerary on this site and have it delivered to your phone via the app to access offline. Also provides access to maps & over 1000 travel guides.
Language Apps
Use these apps to translate menus, brochures, signs, photos, & more.
Google Translate – Free, translate by type, or using your phone camera. Can also take a pic of the translated image with the camera to save for later. Great when trying to read menus, packaged items in stores, & more. Can be quirky without wifi or International coverage out of area.
TripLingo – Free & Paid, translate languages with voice translator, learn essential phrases, & more. Free version has basic access to all languages, can upgrade to premium subscription to access all content.
Currency Apps
Use these apps to calculate the costs of items into US dollars from any currency.
XE Currency – Free, convert every currency in the world, offline access as well with it remembering last conversion rate. Can also get the paid version for $1.99 if you don’t want any ads.
Currency – Free, convert 150 currencies.
Transportation Apps – Planes
Use these apps to find flights, check in online, & more.
Skyscanner – Free, look for cheap flights, set up price alerts to be notified when prices drop, access your recent searches.
Ryanair – Free, search for cheap flights, have boarding passes delivered to your phone, & check in on the go.
*Too many to list all, there are many more airline apps like Wizz Air, Wow air, etc. Pretty much every major airline has an app.
Transportation Apps – Trains
Use these apps to plan train routes, find times, & book tickets.
Rail Planner – Free, offline access to find timetables, routes, & city maps. Great for cross European travel. Once downloaded you don’t need internet except for the special features.
DB Navigator – Free, German train routes, schedules, times & tickets. NOTE: I’ve been told that if you buy the tickets on the app you can often get them cheaper than the website.
Trainline – Free, UK train schedules, planning, ticket purchases.
*Also note you can get Metro apps for most of the large cities, Paris, London, etc. which will show you routes so you know what stop to get off at and times.
Transportation Apps – Automobiles
Use these apps to get driving directions, estimated costs & find gas stations.
Google Maps – Free, GPS directions, life traffic conditions, worldwide maps. If you plan on using your phone as a GPS then you need this app. We’ve found it to be the most accurate with driving time & conditions, Apple maps on the iPhone is also good as well for Europe.
Viamichelin – Free, travel routes, costs such as estimated fuel costs, tolls, speed cameras & more. I’ve found that this site highly overestimates the drive time but I like the cost estimator.
Esso Fuel Finder – Free, easily find gas stations around you using GPS, does require cell phone service & data.
Where To Stay Apps
Use these apps to find places to stay, keep track of confirmation numbers, directions to locations & more.
Booking.com – Free, find places to say, change reservation dates, cancel bookings, use offline maps to arrive at location, paperless confirmation access for check-in.
HomeAway & VRBO – Free, find vacation rentals to stay at in 139 countries, contact owners, view photos & reviews. This is great for larger families, no fees like AirBnb.
*TONS of other apps for places to stay like Hotels.com, Orbitz, AirBnB & more, too many to list, the above are my top two!
Amusement Park Apps
Use these apps to avoid long queues, find show times, and easily navigate the parks.
Disneyland Paris App – Free, find approx. waiting times, show times, restaurant/shops near you via GPS. Does require cell service/data to use. We used it and found it a great way to avoid the long lines and if it said 15 mins it was closer to 10 mins at the actual line.
Europa-Park – Free, Germany’s largest theme park. App shows approx. waiting times, show times, car finder, park navigator, table reservations, & more.
*Check for apps for parks your visiting most of the larger ones have apps – Phantaisialand, Legoland – UK, Germany, etc, & Gardaland – Italy as some examples.
Finding Stuff Apps
Use these apps to find bathrooms & wifi.
Toilet Finder – Free, use this to find free toilets all over the world, can be limiting in Europe where toilets normally require a small fee.
WC Finder – Free, find toilets worldwide, includes reviews about cleanliness, costs & opening times.
Free Wifi finder – Free, use this in 50 countries to find free wifi hotspot, hotspots are stored locally on your phone so you can use offline.
You can also download the list as a printable PDF file for free HERE. Or download it and save it to your Travel folder for easy access to the links 🙂
Hope you find some of these apps helpful, Happy Travels!
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