Summer is here! Time to leverage that smart phone to have the best summer vacation while also saving some Benjamins…or Tubmans 🙂 If you have any favorites we left out, please feel free to share via social media.  We love trying out new apps!

Tripcase: Keeps your itineraries all in one place including flights, hotels, and rental car bookings.  You send your travel information to an email address and it automatically uploads the information to your app.  You can also share with friends and family which is a perk if you are a frequent traveler.

Skyscanner: Compares flights to find the best possible price on domestic and international travel.  You can set it up to send emails when prices dip on your saved searches.  You can track hotel and car rentals on this as well.

Bring Fido: Traveling with a furry friend? This app allows you to find pet-friendly hotels and other arrangements.  It also maps out parks near you that are pet friendly.

Airbnb: Allows you to stay in personal homes at a lower rate than a hotel usually.  Our company has personally used this for work trips and saved $100s plus had the luxury of staying in an unforgettable location.  Although this style of hotel is not for everyone, for those willing to try it out, be prepared to meet great hosts who may become a new set of friends around the world.

Citymapper: Provides detailed real-time transit information for the metro, bus system, cycling, etc. This apps helps you navigate a new city maximizing your time to see all the sites you want.   It also is integrated with Uber to make calling a car easier.

Expensify: Tracks your travel expenses in one place.  This provides easy to use reports to make budgeting easier while traveling. Also if you are a regular business traveler, it will help with reimbursement and taxes.

Timeout: Provides a directory of ideas on how to enjoy your current city.  The app covers bars, restaurants, attractions, events, concerts, etc.  You can even book through the app for some events, making you feel like an insider.

Livetrekker: Tracks you on your travels creating a digital journal of your time.  You can go back after and add pictures, video, and audio to properly document your site-seeing. It is like a digital scrapbook.

Honorable Mentions:

Postagram: Allows you to create cute postcards on your phone to mail to family and friends while traveling.

Bravolol: Plan ahead and learn some basic phrases before you travel.  Once downloaded this app needs no internet connection so you can hear the phonetic spelling to new words to become a regular linguistic connoisseur

Hitlist: This flight app finds deals for trips you are interested in taking.  You can track different destinations and they give suggestions for the best dates to plan your vacation based off airfare.

Hopper: Uses month maps to recommend best days to fly out.  Unlike other apps, they show you each day’s deals and color codes them by whether it is a good deal or not.  It will also share recommendations of when the app thinks prices will go up or down on your trip.