5 Must Have Travel Apps

Preparing for a road trip is kind of a big deal. You usually know where you're going and now there is GPS to figure out how you're going to get there. Maybe you've got recommended rest stops, hotel's or that Air BnB reservation that you've decided to check out along the way. Well, I've rounded up # of the must have travel apps for your road trip. I have used these and obviously find them useful and I hope that you will too.
Waze
 

Waze is my favorite navigation app because it automatically recalculates your route to save you time if an accident gets reported by another user. It tracks your speed, alerts you to things like red light cameras, cops in the area and vehicles on the shoulder or things in the road. Unfortunately it doesn't tell you what lane or shoulder but it's easy to get distracted on the road and the warning makes you more alert. It can also lead you on a crazy goose chase. They have fun promotional things such as Col. Sander's navigating your way. I use a male British voice because everything is better in an accent. If they had Irish, I'd be all in.

Gas Buddy


Gas buddy is my favorite app on this list to be honest. You get points for entering in gas prices (confirming each gas station is a set price as well as correcting it when the prices change) and they enter you to win free gas from them! Who wouldn't go on a road trip if the gas was paid for? You have the option of using SAMs club and Costco gas stations or not if you don't have a member card.

Tip: You can buy gas at Costco without a membership so long as you have a "cash card."

If you go to GasBuddy.com there is a trip calculator which isn't available on the app, that will allow you to put in your car's information, starting point, end point, if it is round trip or one way and it will not only give you directions to the cheapest gas stations along the way but it will also tell you how much gas it will cost you. I enjoy using this feature and using it to save for future road trips.

Music: Spotify vs Pandora
 


This was such a tough one to write. Spotify has many perks; I get premium free for working at Starbucks so don't have commercials and I can skip songs if I want. I can go in and set up playlists, view others playlists, listen to an artist radio, ect. I love the playlist feature and I've given you guys playlists before.You can also make songs available offline for when you have no data connection.

Pandora on the other hand is cheaper for premium commercial free music. $4.99 per month compared to Spotify's $9.99 per months. Pandora has more of a variety but you can't forward through too many songs even if you pay for the premium. I just set up a bunch of radio or artists stations and play around with them when it tells me it can't skip anymore.

Both of these will drain your phone battery AND use up your data plan. Therefore you may want to stick it out with the good old fashioned iPod or even better CD's.

Roadside America
 


This is a wonderful app that allows you to find crazy attractions no matter where you are. It is only available on iTunes, and it costs $2.99 to download and you can either pay an additional $5.99 for every region or $1.99 to unlock a region you are going to.

Regions include: Northeast (Delaware, D.C, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, New York, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia).

Southeast (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee).

Midwest (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Wisconsin).

Southwest (Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah).

Northwest (Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, Wyoming).

California (California, Alaska and Hawaii [um, Alaska and Hawaii are now apart of California?]).

You'll notice that they specifically leave out certain states that would be better grouped in other categories. For example: Nebraska and Kansas aren't in the Midwest group - Kansas is considered Southwest and Nebraska is considered Northwest, which if you ask anyone from either of those states they are going to tell you it's in the Midwest. It's because they want you to spend money buying all the regions.

You're better off paying $9($3 +$6) for everything - US & Canada, rather than paying individually (which would total out to be $14 not including the initial $3 purchase).

If you're in Canada you lucky dogs, you'll have the whole country unlocked as apart of your initial purchase. So you get to pay whatever the conversion rate of $2.99 USD into Canadian dollars and so long as you don't plan on road tripping in the U.S you're set.

  Instagram or Snapchat

Obviously you'll want to document your travels for everyone to see and you'll definitely want to be safe about it. Instagram's and Snaps from your dashboard are fine, so long as it is a passenger taking them or you are stopped. Don't ruin your trip by crashing your car or worse getting hurt! You can add The Wandering Thistle on Instagram and WanderThistle on Snapchat to see when I'm traveling.

What are your favorite apps?  

Are you a Spotify or a Pandora or an old school (Radio, CD's, iPod) person?