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When it comes to traveling, your smartphone can be a huge help. It's there to hold on to your boarding pass, take pictures, and when you get lost on your way to that cute B&B (it looked so easy to get to online!), point you in the right direction.
While it's serving as the perfect copilot to your adventures, your phone can also be a powerful tool in helping others. Here are a few apps that help you do good while you're on the road.
Donate a Photo
Put all those smartphone pictures of your latest adventure to good use with Johnson & Johnson's Donate a Photo app. Like some other photo sharing services, the iOS and Android apps allow you to upload and share photos with your friends. Pics you upload to this app, however, earn a charity of your choice $1 apiece (limit of one per day).
Charity Miles
Put an afternoon stroll around a park to good use with Charity Miles. The app keeps track of how far you walk, run, or bike and donates cash to charity of your choice—such as the Michael J. Fox Foundation or ASPCA—based on how far you travel. Walking or running will earn $.25 per mile, and a bike tour will help you earn $.10 per mile.
Feedie
An artistic photo of your dinner can mean an actual meal for someone in need. Whenever you dine at one of the participating restaurants and share a picture of your food through the Feedie app, the restaurant will make a donation to the The Lunchbox Fund to help feed a child in need in South Africa.
Social Impact
Make better choices about where you shop while traveling with Social Impact. The app helps you find businesses nearby that employ homeless in the area, offer fair trade pricing to artisans, or adopt green practices. Businesses are organized by type and are plotted out on a map so you can find them easily.
Check-in For Good
Forget Foursquare: Check-in For Good gives money to a good cause every time you check in at a participating retailer. The app benefits groups ranging from local high schools to larger charities such as NHL player Vinny Lecavalier's foundation for children with cancer. Donations to groups are made through check-ins, as well as things like social shares through the app.
Tilt World
$2.99, iOS
Looking for a new game to play on your long flight? Tilt World has you play the part of Flip, the last tadpole on Earth, who is trying to rebuild the forest. As you play, you earn Tilt Point Seeds, which go toward planting actual trees in a deforested area in Madagascar. So far, the game is responsible for planting 16,000 trees. Its creators hope to ultimately plant 1 million.