There are hundreds of apps out there supposedly designed to make traveling easier and more fun. New ones come out every day. A few are good. Many more are thinly veiled advertising gimmicks. Some cost. Some of the free ones don’t work or are terrible. If you don’t have the time or the inclination to waste time surfing the net, here are some tried and true Google apps, I use Android, but most of these have iOS counterparts. I wouldn`t want to leave home without them.
The MacDaddy of app makers. Google has a stable of horses you need to ride on your next trip. Unfortunately some of those horses are old and worn out. Some don`t know the gate from the finish line. Google has a philosophy that says “if you put enough horses in the race, one of them will come out a winner.” The problem with that is you can get stuck with an old nag. Here are the winners you need:
There are lots of good emails out there. Gmail is one of these. You need Gmail because it will tie your other Google accounts together so everything runs smoothly.
Google Photos
Google Photos saves all your pictures to the cloud for free. (There is a paid version but unless you are a professional photographer, the free one is the one you want.) When we say saves all for free, we mean all. I currently have over twenty thousand photos without a glitch. Google photos transfers the photos to the cloud. This can be a positive and a negative. Your photos are available on all your devices. Yay! If you drop your phone in the lake or lose it your photo`s are right there when you get a replacement. Yay! If you are over at Aunt Myrtle`s who lives in the middle of nowhere and has no cell signal or wifi, you have no pics. Boo! So save at least a few pics to your phone for Aunt Myrtle.
Google Maps
- Maps
You probably know Google Maps, but don`t forget it can give you public transportation, bike and walk routes. These are a wonder. Nothing gives you a better feeling than watching your stop come up on free wifi when you are traveling on route 39 in Dublin, Ireland in the dark and you have never been there before. “No, honey, not here. It`s two more stops after the right on Clonsilla Road.”
Google Trips
You can spend forty hours researching points of interest in Berlin, or you can get the same information on Google Trips with a click. Here’s a tip: use the download feature of Trips for times when you don’t have Wifi. Don’t forget to delete the download after the trip. Those things take up a lot of data.
Google Voice, Hangouts, and Hangouts Dialer
Google phone services that will let you call and text for free over Wifi. Saves a lot of money on International calls back to the US. Google keeps threatening to trash these services. At their worst they are a pain to set up and finicky after setup. Do your setup before you leave the US. Make sure you are familiar with how they work before you leave. At their best they provide free clear calls. Many people have International phone bills that run from $300 to 500 a month. My calls and texts cost nothing. Nothing is good. Be careful with Google Voice. In some situations it may use your carrier`s signal and that can cost.
Google Keep
Handy for notes and pictures of things you need to know on short notice. The positive with Keep is that the notes are available if you are offline. Lots of note apps disappear when you don`t have Wifi.
Google Docs
A good word processor in the cloud. Saves as you type so you don`t lose data because you forgot to close or your battery went dead. This article is being written on Google Docs.
Google Duo
Google Duo
A contender for Best Free Video Calls. Your friend will also have to have Duo for it to work.
Google Translate
Saving the best for last, Google Translate. Translate is one of the most amazing apps to come along in a long time. Translates almost every language you can think of into any other language, even Mandarin to English. But the real kicker is the camera function. Click on the camera icon in Translate and focus on the chosen text. It will translate the text into your chosen language. Truly amazing.
So that’s all the Google apps you gotta have. The best thing is their all free on the Google Play Store. Now are there other travel apps you need? Apps that are still great, still free, but not Google? Stay tuned for Apps Part Two coming up.