How many travel apps do you have on your mobile phone? How many of them do you use frequently and how many of them you don’t even remember?
Our mobile phones are making life easier every single day. They are our planner, accountant, gameboy, assistant, and sometimes, let’s admit it, best friend. As more and more people become addicted to travelling, hundreds of new applications are being launched and these applications are developing rapidly to make planning and travelling easier. Sounds perfect! But are we keeping up to date on these developments? Maybe we have not heard about many new features that would give us a relief from the pile of information available.
We’ve gathered a few, very helpful features of most frequently used travel apps that you are probably not familiar with. Travelling with your mobile means travelling smart, let’s take it further together!
Google Maps
Google maps is everywhere in our life. We don’t use it only for travelling but we also use it to go from one place to another in our city. We are so lucky that this application is updated frequently by Google. Thanks to its new features and updated maps, it shows each step on the street. We use it so frequently now that asking for a direction becomes an old habit for us. As this application is often updated, we decided to introduce you a few very useful features that you might not know. Let’s start:
Ok Maps
Offline maps saved many travellers’ lives. After you search the name of the city you would like to visit, you can download the entire city map (it takes some time) by clicking save button on the bottom right corner. Now we will tell about a different version of this feature and it is very important for offline map users. Let’s say that you are in a hurry and do not have time to download the map. After you find the location that you want to go on maps, you can save it by writing OK Maps and it saves you time. It is perfect for hasty, lazy, forgetful or risk-averse people!
Explore the Neighbourhood
Now you are at a new place ready to be explored in the world. Do you prefer to get lost or to be risk averse? Regardless of your choice, this rarely used discover feature will be helpful for you. It is not only limited to hip restaurants or activities, but you can also find anything you might need including greengrocery, electronic shop, ATM, car wash, car park, live music bars. Just as if Trip Advisor is inside your map.
Share Your Location
Where are you? What’s the address? Where on earth is it? Where exactly shall we meet?
If you ask these kinds of questions in your life, this feature will help you a lot. Share location feature of WhatsApp and Facebook but if you don’t use them to contact people, Google maps is there for you. You can share your location or any place by clicking the menu on the top left corner.
Add Another Stop
You would like to visit all the second-hand stores in the city or all the bookstores. However, you cannot naturally keep all in your mind or you want to save some time by planning on mobile. Google doesn’t focus on taking you to a place from another, it can also take you to point C, D, E, F or can create a plan with as much as stops you want. It is a perfect method to learn the approximate time of driving or walking routes. Plan your route by selecting your first stop, click Add Stop button on the menu on right top corner and now you can add your third stop.
Be a Stalker
All joking aside, it is another very helpful feature. If you have a friend born to be late or if you are that friend, this feature relieves patience of you and your friends. Thanks to real-time location share feature, you don’t need to call your friends to ask their location or they can track you sneakily. When you go into a place that might not be safe, you can comfort yourself by sharing your live location with your friends or family. Live location share is for one hour. It can also be used on Facebook.
Where is Your Car? Jokes
Are you one of the people who always forget the parking spot of the car while thinking many other things either on travelling or in everyday life? You will not forget it anymore as you can pin where you park your car on Maps. Just click once on the blue icon which shows your current location and choose ‘mark it as parking point’ and explore the city without worrying about the car.
Uber
Uber is one of the most frequently used applications for exploring cities. Updates of this application come as fast as its fame. Therefore, it is very likely for you not to know its every useful feature. We listed the two most unknown and helpful features.
Uber Browser?
If applications in your mobile take much space or if you don’t use a smartphone, you can still use Uber. Uber has a very practical mobile website for the ones who cannot request a ride on the application. Choose your location on m.uber.com, enter your information and you are ready to request a ride!
Sharing is Caring
If it is your first time on Uber or if you have doubts about its security, click share your location button by scrolling up the main page. Easy, practical and secure.
Google Translate – Live Video Translation
Google translate is in the centre of our travels especially abroad. It makes travelling much easier as being updated. One of its unknown features is very helpful, especially in restaurants: Live Visual Translation. When you choose the language to be translated and press the camera button, you will see what is written on every image. This application can translate from 27 languages. Now menus are in our pockets!
Couchsurfing – Hangouts
Couchsurfing helps travellers in terms of their budget and provides the opportunity to meet with locals. A new feature of this application is perfect for the ones who do not have room to host a traveller at home but still want to meet a foreign culture or the ones who want to meet locals even if they have their own accommodation: Couchsurfing Hangout. It also helps CS travellers to gather in the same city. Before the update, travellers used to ask each other to meet on forums. Hangout feature made them save time and random meetings much easier. Another reason to use this common application for you!
TripWhistle – Where Am I
We recommend this security application to all travellers even if it is not widely used. TripWhistle knows where you are in the world from your location settings and help you to call the police, fire station or ambulance immediately. Moreover, it does more than calling emergency numbers: it can find out the detailed address of your current location. It can even show the coordinates for the ones who find addresses ordinary ☺
It is an amazing update nobody would think about, we might need it at any time though.
BONUS: FLAPP
Flapp, Travelstart’s flight app, compare flights on all your favourite airlines just like a travel agent in your pocket. The name is short for ‘flight app’ but don’t limit your expectations, this app also compares rental deals from the world’s leading car hire companies. Book your flight, rent your car and be ready to explore.
That’s the end of our recommendations for daily tours in Nairobi for now. Why not sign up for our weekly newsletter and be the first to take advantage of fast-selling fares to your favourite destinations? Click here to never miss the best travel deals.
Featured Image: Fstoppers