Have You Downloaded These Practical Offline Travel Apps for Your Life on The Road?
Ignoring your phone/laptop/life is something that must be done at some point while travelling. Unfortunately this blissful ignorance of the connected world has to end eventually, due to either necessity, emergency or tuning back in (then abruptly realising how fucked up most “news” is. *Shivers*).
As much as I love dropping out, filling up my technological companion (in my case an iPad) with essential travel apps that still worked offline was incredibly helpful and got me out of some sticky situations overseas.
When I was hopelessly lost or horribly late, or both, the apps I turned to were often offline travel apps that work without wifi. Internet can be sparse and unreliable overseas, so check out these offline travel apps that might one day save your ass too.
📲 GOOGLE MAPS
Gone are the days of paper maps; ripping and folding awkwardly. Not to mention parting with a pretty penny for one. Instead, use an app you already have to let you get lost in a new, wifi-less place, Google Maps! There are two ways to use Google Maps offline:
1. Search the city and click “download”. You should be able to use directions with this setting. This is a new method that I haven’t actually tried so it’s Googles problem if it doesn’t work. Bitch to them if you want, alternatively give this a read and then have a go.
2. When you arrived at your base, fire up Google Maps and let the blue dot find you. As you walk around, granted you’re in a large city, the dot will follow you without internet connection. Though kind of creepy if you think about it too much, this dot could save you from walking 2 hours in the complete wrong direction and give you some bearings in a strange land.
📲 BOOKING APPS
When you book with a service, like Booking.com/AirBnb/Hostelworld, if they have an app available, it’s super convenient to download these to your tech. They will work offline but often to varying degrees of success.
The best offline travel app I’ve found is HostelWorld because it makes hostel details and directions easy to access. Budget airline apps, like AirAsia or JetStar, are also pretty good. It was comforting to know I could whip the airline ticket out at customs as proof of a semi-thought, ongoing travel plan, not that I really needed it.
With developing technology, useful travel apps will become even easier to use offline. Right now, however, the tech is pretty sketchy, so it’s good to open and refresh the apps when you are in wifi to give your future self a better chance of getting out of a jam.
Pocket was the MVTA (Most Valuable Travel App) of my trip. It saves web pages so they can be viewed offline. Simple yet effective. I saved everything:
🗃 Hotel bookings
🗃 Directions
🗃 Language guides
🗃 Historical site information (be your own guide!)
🗃 City guides
🗃 Rail maps
🗃 #Longreads for flights, planes or trains
You can tag articles for quick searching and Pocket also recommends the best articles around the web.
📲 SCREENSHOT
Okay, I know this isn’t an offline travel app per-se, but hear me out.
Screenshotting bookings, instructions, maps, bus routes, etc., basically anything that can’t be saved to Pocket, is an incredibly easy way to keep your shit together. Although it fills up your memory, it can make for an easily accessible, resizable, and reliable information gatherer, as well as a mini journal of your trip. This is nothing new — I caught many trippers scrolling through their photo folder with a smattering of screenshots inside — but I’d just thought I’d open up that brainwave for ya.
There were many-a-day where these apps kept us above water. Allowing us to communicate, orientate and masturbate migrate in this mad, connected world.
These practical offline travel apps, along with a slew of other fun apps, add up to make my iPad the ultimate travel machine. Even without the magic of the internet.
However if being disconnected isn’t your cup of tea, you can always pick up an internet sim card to suit most devices at major airports and tourist hubs.
Got any tips on how technology can help travellers, online or off? Get ’em at me, man.
