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The 10 Best Travel Apps for Every Step of the Journey

These travel apps will change the way you travel from booking, to boarding, and back with just a touch, tap, or flick of the finger.
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Whether it’s finding the perfect vacation, accessing an easy transit guide anywhere in the world, snapping a selfie to get through immigration, reading a pop up notification about security lines, or mastering the airport wait, sure enough, there really is an app for that. While Pokémon Go may not live on your phone forever, these apps certainly will.

GateGuru

Security Wait Estimator, Gate Change and Delay Notifier, and General Airport Guide
For those who want to master air travel with ease, this is your one stop app. When in transit, you'll get up to the minute notifications about security wait times, flight delays, gate changes, amenities and more. Aside from keeping you in the know, the app will give you a simple, easy guide to all the shops and restaurants in your terminal, with reviews too.

ROME2Rio

Point To Point Guide To Get Anywhere and Compare Prices
Whether you're in Rome, Rio or any other city around the world, this brilliant app will get you navigating like a pro and probably save you some money at the same time. This free resource allows you to type in any starting point and destination, showing you exactly how to get from Point A to Point B as quickly and economically as possible—train, plane, bus, bike, it's all there.

LOLA

Futuristic Travel Agent
Lola is the future of travel booking, where you send simple messages like "I need a flight to London and a hotel" in a Facebook Messenger style conversation to a super travel agent. The app uses a combination of artificial intelligence based on your travel profile and a helpful, real-life person to book your travel seamlessly every time, keeping in mind your individual tastes. It's simple, fast, easy, and, most importantly, done in a single tap.

Hipmunk

Trip Inspiration, Planning, and Deals
If you need travel inspiration, Hipmunk is your new digital best friend. The app offers easy recommendations like "beach," "city break," "ski," or "live music" before finding you the best possible deals for your selection all around the world. They even throw in a link to book everything at the best prices. You can be as flexible as "anytime this year" or extremely precise. They'll even alert you if prices on your bucket list trip drop.

TripIt

Trip Organizer With Up to the Minute Notifications
Most trips involve booking a few separate pieces and no one wants to be the one holding up the line looking through emails to find a confirmation number. Fortunately, TripIt organizes all your itineraries and confirmations in one beautiful dashboard. All you have to do is forward your information to a TripIt email address. Not only will everything be there, you'll get notifications about where your gate is and directions to things like the rental car area. Pretty nifty.

LoungeBuddy

Instant Access to Airport VIP Lounges for Everyone
Raise your hand if you love long layovers and delays? Thought so. Using this exciting app, you can turn delay chaos into a relaxing visit to a swanky airport lounge instantly, even when flying economy. The app will organize your elite status and credit cards to see which lounges you already have access to and which you can get into for a one-time fee. Then, trade in the crowded terminal for some complimentary drinks, food, Wi-Fi, comfy seating areas, and in some instances, even a shower.

Mobile Passport

Breeze Through Immigration With a Selfie
For the selfie obsessed and those who just can't bear filing another paper form or waiting in another line, this is a dream come true. Without having to pay for a trusted traveler program like Global Entry, users can process their United States Immigration from their phone, using a selfie snap and a few taps on the electronic customs form. Easy, and yes, very fast.

SeatGuru

Color Coded Guide to Getting the Best Seat in Any Cabin
Not every seat is created equal and that's especially true when flying economy. If you'd like to grab a few extra inches of legroom or at the very least, a seat further from the busy lavatory, you're going to want to check SeatGuru. The app shows you a map of every airplane with a color coded guide to the best and worst seats. Sometimes you don't even need to pay extra to grab one of the best seats, thanks to this insider info.

FairFly

Flight Price Tracker Looking to Get You a Refund If You Over-Pay
Sometimes airlines promise you that you're getting the best price and then lower the prices without telling you. Fairfly tracks your reservation for any pricing changes to see if the airline owes you money for breaking the "lowest price" promise. Best of all, the app handles all the legwork needed to get you money back so if you do, it’s just a welcome surprise. Occasionally, you can get the entire cost of the ticket back.

Google Translate

Speak To Anyone
Never fear getting lost in translation again wherever you are, thanks to Google Translate. The app has been helping travelers interact in just about every language for years, just by speaking into your phone and instantly having it translated to a foreign language. Now, Google Translate is "offline" allowing you to use it even without phone service or roaming charges. Muy bien!

Award Wallet

All Your Points And Miles Balances In One Place
We all keep hearing about frequent flier miles and how they're going to unlock amazing free travel, but we can't seem to even unlock our frequent flyer accounts, let alone remember which ones we have. Never again! Award Wallet organizes all of your loyalty programs and account balances in one place. The premium version even keeps track of all your logins and expiration dates to ensure you never miss a mile.