Top 5 Travel Apps of 2019: SE Asia
The best free travel apps to use in Southeast Asia
Updated: January 28, 2019
Looking for the best travel apps to download on your phone before traveling to Southeast Asia? Check out our recommendations for must have apps to help you plan an amazing trip; we used these apps on our SE Asia travels in 2018 and 2019 and found them essential to our travels. We like to travel on more of a backpackers budget and found many of these free travel apps helpful to our low budget travel style. While many of the apps we mention below have the option to upgrade to a paid plan, all of these apps can be used for free. Download these top five travel apps before your next travel adventure!
Maps.Me
Category: Navigation
We found this application to be the best navigation app to use while traveling! The most useful feature? Being able to download maps, access them while offline and navigate using GPS. Regardless of if you have WiFi or service, as long as you download a particular country’s map on the app you will be able to route to or from various locations. While the maps are not as detailed as Apple maps or Google maps may be, they do a good job of showing streets, major landmarks, hotels and restaurants, even noting which ones are rated high and are popular among users.
Grab
Category: Transportation
Hailing a taxi can be a difficult ordeal, especially while traveling abroad! Grab is essentially SE Asia’s version of Lyft or Uber and is available in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines and Myanmar. It offers safe and reliable transport at reasonable prices, often comparable to local taxi rates. Something unique about Grab is the variety of transportation options available. Among other vehicles, catching a ride with a taxi, bike (motorcycle), or car is typically always available. We used Grab frequently and found it particularly useful for early morning trips or late night rides where catching a taxi can be difficult and expensive. In larger cities, Grab is also delivering food! Late night cravings = satisfied!
Down Dog YOga
Category: Lifestyle
Traveling can put a lot of stress on the body. Looking for some relief after that overnight bus ride? Down Dog helps provide some sanity to the mind and solace for sore bodies in the form of helpful yoga lessons easy to load when you have service or WiFi. We use this app frequently at home in Oregon to get our daily yoga fix and were beyond stoked when it continued to provide great instruction in Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos, Sri Lanka and Taiwan! Lessons vary from beginner to advanced. There is even the option for a three day beginner series. With Down Dog it is possible to squeeze in a quick lesson in just seven minutes! The app also offers lessons up to 90 minutes to those looking to zen out for a longer amount of time.
Agoda
Category: Accommodation
Looking for the best app for booking a hotel in Asia? We’ve used many accommodation services and have found the one that works best for our budget is Agoda! We love it for its frequent perks some of which include gift cards for members and free night stays as well as the the ability to earn miles through some airline carriers. Another great feature of Agoda is that it will send you an alert if the pricing for a hotel you have viewed changes. There are substantial deals to be had as well! We’ve seen outrageous discounts (think 70% off) at some pretty luxurious digs. Wanting the epic sea view with private pool bungalow? Agoda may be your best bet to make that dream a reality! In addition to hotels and hostels, the app can also feature some smaller home stays as well.
Google Translate
Category: Communication
While Google produces some amazingly helpful apps, our favorite to use while traveling abroad is Google Translate. Use of Google’s translation apps has helped us in navigating some tricky situations abroad. We’ve used it to communicate anything from incoming storm updates to discovering vegetarian options on menus! The best part of Google Translate is the ability to download some languages, allowing the translate feature to work regardless of if you have service or WiFi connection.
Another Google app we really like is Google Photos. Having the app on your phone will allow you to automatically back up your phone’s photos for storage. Using Google Photos allows you to access photos previously backed up on the app from any computer. If your phone gets lost, breaks, or takes one of its notorious swims, your precious travel photos will not be lost forever if Google Photos has worked its magic! Keep in mind the app will need to connect to WiFi or cell service to back up the photos.
Aloha, friends! We hope you enjoyed our article on the best travel apps for Southeast Asia. All of these opinions are our own. We found these apps incredibly helpful while traveling. We hope they make your travel plans more stress-free and help you as you adventure!
Feel free to contact us with any thoughts, questions, comments or concerns.
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