I spent three hours standing in the freezing rain outside a closed trattoria in Trastevere back in 2018 because a “top-rated” travel app told me it was open, and that was the day I deleted about 40% of the junk on my phone. Most travel apps are built by people who want to sell you ads, not people who are actually trying to find a train platform in Berlin while carrying two suitcases and a screaming toddler. They are cluttered, they eat your battery, and they usually try to be everything to everyone.
I’m not a professional traveler. I just work a normal job and spend my vacation days trying to see things without losing my mind. Over the last six years, I’ve narrowed it down to a tiny folder on my iPhone. If an app doesn’t save me at least 15 minutes of stress per day, it’s gone. I don’t care how many awards it won in the App Store.
Google Maps is a cluttered mess and I’m tired of pretending it’s not
I know, I know. You can’t live without it. I can’t either, but I’ve grown to loathe it. It has become a cluttered junk drawer of “promoted pins” and useless “Explore” features that suggest the same three tourist traps every time you move the map. Last June in Lisbon, I tracked my usage. Out of 10 “highly rated” spots the app pushed on me, 6 were clearly paying for placement or were just mediocre cafes that knew how to game the algorithm.
The UI is a disaster now. Too many buttons. Too many pop-ups asking me if I want to “contribute” a photo of my mediocre sandwich. I use it for the blue dot and nothing else. If I want to know where to actually eat, I use my eyes or I ask a human being who looks like they live there. Google Maps is a utility, not a guide. Treat it like a hammer, not a friend.
The best travel app is often the one you use the least. If you’re staring at your screen, you’re missing the point of being there.
The one app I pay for without even looking at the price
It’s called Flighty. It’s expensive—like $49 a year or something—and I honestly don’t care. I would probably pay double. I have this irrational loyalty to it because it is the only app that feels like it was designed by someone who actually flies.
Here is why: it is faster than the airlines. I’ve been sitting at a gate in Heathrow where the big board says “On Time,” and Flighty sends me a push notification saying the plane is delayed 22 minutes because the incoming flight is stuck in Zurich. Ten minutes later, the gate agent finally makes the announcement. That 10-minute head start is the difference between being first in line at the customer service desk and being 200th.
I tested the battery drain on a 12-hour layover in Doha last month. Flighty used exactly 4% of my battery while the United app sucked 19% just trying to refresh a seat map that wouldn’t load anyway. It’s clean. It’s fast. It does one thing.
Flighty is the gold standard for what a travel app should be.
A brief, angry tangent about TripAdvisor
I hate TripAdvisor. I really do. I know people will disagree, and they’ll say it’s great for finding “hidden gems,” but TripAdvisor is for people who go to Florence and want to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe. It is the lowest common denominator of human experience. The reviews are either written by people who are angry that a 400-year-old hotel doesn’t have an elevator or by people who think a frozen pizza is a culinary masterpiece. Anyway, I’m getting off track. Just delete it. Your life will be better.
But I digress. Let’s talk about something that actually works.
Citymapper is better than Google, and I’ll fight you on this
If you are in a city that Citymapper supports, stop using Google Maps for transit. Just stop. What I mean is—actually, let me put it differently. Google tells you *how* to get there, but Citymapper tells you *where to stand* on the platform so you’re right next to the exit when you get off.
I tracked my transit times in London last year. Over 15 trips on the Tube, Citymapper’s arrival estimates were accurate to within 45 seconds. Google was off by an average of 4 minutes. That might not sound like much, but when you’re trying to catch a train at Paddington, 4 minutes is an eternity.
The only problem is that they don’t cover every city. If you’re in a mid-sized city in the Midwest, you’re stuck with Google. But for NYC, Paris, Tokyo, or London? It’s not even a contest.
Total winner.
How to not feel like a zombie when you land
There is this app called Timeshifter. It’s for jet lag. I might be wrong about the science—I’m not a doctor—but it uses some kind of algorithm based on light exposure to tell you when to drink coffee, when to seek light, and when to sit in the dark like a weirdo.
I used it for a trip to Kyoto in 2019. Before that, I used to just power through with espresso and sheer willpower. That usually ended with me having a breakdown in a 7-Eleven because I couldn’t figure out how to pay for a rice ball. I once tried to use a translation app in a rural Japanese station to ask for a non-smoking table, and I ended up asking the waiter if he had a “fire in his soul.” He was terrified. I felt like a complete idiot.
Anyway, Timeshifter actually worked for me. You have to be disciplined, though. If the app tells you to put on sunglasses at 2:00 PM inside a bright airport, you have to do it. You look like a jerk, but you don’t feel like death the next day.
- Flighty for the airport chaos.
- Citymapper for getting around without getting lost.
- Timeshifter for the brain fog.
- Airalo for eSIMs (though honestly, sometimes buying a local SIM card is still cheaper if you aren’t lazy).
I used to think I needed twenty apps to travel “correctly.” I was completely wrong. You need four. Maybe three. The rest of the time, you should probably just look up from your phone and see where you actually are.
Is it even possible to travel without a smartphone anymore? I genuinely don’t know the answer to that, but I’d like to try one day just to see if I survive.
Buy the Flighty subscription. It’s worth every penny.
