Our Favourite Travel Apps

TripAdvisor
You’re in a hole-in-the wall restaurant in Southern Italy and you just want to know: should I chance the mussels? Odds are, TripAdvisor can help. With more than 320 million reviews of restaurants, hotels and attractions, it’s a great source of unvarnished travel advice.

Seat Guru
With most booking apps, you pay for a flight then pray you won’t be wedged into a tiny seat beside the bathroom. Not with Seat Guru. The app gives you the lowdown on individual airline seats, outlining things like location, legroom and in-flight entertainment. It covers more than 100 carriers and will also tell you whether your plane has Wi-Fi.

Bring Fido
Travelling with the pooch? Bring Fido will give you a rundown of canine-friendly hotels in your destination of choice, along with a list of parks, hiking trails and restaurants that allow pets.

Google Translate
Along with Google Maps, there is perhaps no app more useful for the international traveller. It can translate 103 languages and, through your phone’s camera, decipher text in 37 languages.

XE Currency
You’re on vacation—you don’t want to do math. This app will help you quickly convert Canadian dollars into every foreign currency and a few precious metals to boot.

Tripit
Keeping your travel plans straight can be tricky. Enter Tripit. Just forward your flight, hotel and rental car confirmation emails to the app and it will automatically compile a master itinerary. The system can even handle restaurant reservations and sporting events.

Google Maps
With detailed schematics of nearly every city under the sun, the world’s best mapping app has made getting lost obsolete. Its route planner, which includes public transit, street-level views, and real-time traffic updates, makes it a must-have for any traveller.

Here Maps or City Maps 2Go
If you’re worried about being hit by the roaming charges that come with using Google Maps abroad, try these offline-mapping apps. Together, they cover more than a hundred countries and thousands of destinations.