The best FREE travel applications for your iPhone
If you are looking for another excuse to purchase an iPhone or want to justify your acquisition of one of these slimline parcels of technological goodness, let me tell you that an iPhone is a fabulous travel accessory. No more lugging around guidebooks, translation dictionaries and piles of documents, there are iPhone applications to meet almost all your travel needs.
And to save you trawling through the hundreds of iPhone application related to travel, Champagne Travel on a Beer Budget has compiled a list of the creme de la creme of travel applications for your iPhone. Best of all my champagne travellers, they’re free!
The best FREE travel applications for your iPhone
Allows you to make travel bookings, view your itinerary plus obtain flight and airport information including gate details, arrival and departure times and baggage collection updates.
Thought you could only use Skype from your computer? Think again. Truphone allows you to harness the money-saving wonder of Skype and use it on your iPhone. You can save yourself some serious money with this application.
We have all been there. You’re walking about in a foreign city and you stumble upon a handbag/pastry/cocktail that you just can’t live without, and then to your joyous surprise you realize that the object of your desire is a total bargain. You hand over piles of currency and it is only later that you realize you miscalculated the exchange rate and actually paid a small fortune. Moral of the story? Download a universal currency converter such as this one to your iPhone and know exactly how much you’re paying, wherever you are in the world.
Save yourself time and hassle by setting up a couple of standard checklists that you can re-use each time you travel. You can organise your lists (pre-flight, onboard luggage, business trip, island vacation etc) and hopefully you’ll never have to endure that stomach-churning worry of whether or not you packed your passport. The application allows you to check items off the list, making it simple to see what else you need to pack/do.
If you love the feeling of organisation when you travel or have other people that need to be informed of your travel plans, TripIt is for you. Simply join TripIt, e-mail them your itinerary and they do the rest. All your trip information (including maps and more) will be available for you to view from your iPhone, as well as being able to send it simply to others.
We all have fabulous intentions of penning our travel memories daily but who hasn’t returned from a trip with a hazy memory and an empty journal? This application allows you to record photos, notes and maps on the go, so you can re-live your trip for years to come.
The last time I was travelling in Thailand I was pregnant and constantly in search of the ladies room. SitOrSquat would have changed my life. I don’t think I need to say anything else.
No travel must-haves list would be complete without a travel guide. Travel Wolf is my travel guide of choice when it comes to comprehensive but free applications for your iPhone. Find out where to eat, sleep, dance, drink and more in your city of choice. The free version of the Trip Wolf application allows you to download three different city guides.
Allows you to view all sorts of documents on your iPhone which is helpful for everything from having a scanned copy of your passport, to articles you want to read in transit.
If you don’t have an application on your iPhone to show you where you can find free or cheap Wi-Fi wherever you are in the world, how else can you get online to get your regular fix of Champagne Travel on a Beer Budget? 
This would have to be my latest iPhone application crush. It is basically your wardrobe in your iPhone. Photograph the items in your wardrobe, categorize them and then compile outfits and packing lists. Not only does it make packing quick and easy, but you can look at your wardrobe in a glance when clothes shopping to make sure what you’re buying goes well with your current wardrobe.
When travelling in Cambodia I was lucky enough to be a dinner guest at the home of a wonderful local family. The mother cooked a superb fish dish and asked me at the end of the meal what I thought of it. Referring to my hurriedly scribbled-down Khmer phrases in my notebook I proceeded to attempt to tell her that the fish was delicious. Only later was I told that I actually said ‘the fish was really boney’. Not a very gracious comment from a guest. Don’t let this happen to you, download iTranslate and be the charming traveler that I know you are.
When you are looking for more than just a word-for-word language translation, download the World Nomads guide for your language of choice. This application allows you to search for basic phrases to say to the locals which we all know can make the world of difference when you are travelling. It beats being that tourist yelling ‘Do you speak English?’ to anyone they come across.
Happy downloading!
August 4th, 2009 at 10:59 am
curious what you think about NileGuide, a new trip planning site, and their iPhone app called Guide to Go. The app enables you to view your own customized trip itineraries on your device and also browse suggested trips based on your current location…
August 5th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Hm, I’ve been toying with the idea of buying an i-phone for a while. Phrases on the move may be the clincher after today’s fiasco in the town hall!
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Via iphone or otherwise….
August 7th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Why not try Igoshi?
It’s very simple - but will work for anyone anywhere when your language skills let you down.
http://www.standardease.co.uk/igoshi/ or straight from the Apple Appstore:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=323677270&mt=8