No Data Required-Android Travel Apps 6
Updated: 2/2016
I don’t travel all that much, just 3-4 weeks out of the country every year, usually for pleasure, not work. Below are the Android apps that consistently work well for me.
- without a data plan
- disconnected
- using wifi-only access
The few times that I’ve looked for a data plan overseas to add to a smartphone, the costs were simply 10x more than I was willing to pay. In Europe, sometimes the data is fairly cheap, so it becomes more of an option. £15 for 2G is a bargain. For 10 days in Turkey, would you pay US$100 for a data capable GSM-SIM? Further, after 7 day, my friend’s SIM stopped working. Seems the Turkish government wants to know about all the cell phone users in their country. Moving the SIM to a different device did make it work again.
If you have a data plan, then translation tools work easier, but we’ll assume no data or wifi connection when you are away from the hotel.
I just returned from central and south east Asia, so the apps that worked are fresh in my mind. Some have been updated, since it is 3 yrs later now and I’ve been around the USA, Africa and to Europe a few times too.
Android Apps
- Built-in Clock/Alarm (Android 4.2+ has a great one) The clock app on Android 5 is excellent. Wish I had this on my Ubuntu desktops!
- K9 – email (nice to use IMAPS and SMTPS) – still using this.
- Maps – 100% offline
- Navmii – they merged the USA and World versions and added support for What3Words Of course, W3W has an app, but it isn’t stable and requires data. Accessing w3w inside Navmii requires data too, but if you set the destination and way-points before leaving wifi, it works great.
- OsmAnd – worldwide OSM maps in those countries that aren’t supported by any other app. This app is last of my choices of free GPS apps.
- GPS Essentials – Tracking to match photos with GPS locations later. If you are a hiker, you MUST have this app.
- City Guides
- TripAdvisor – these are nice, if it exists for your city. The generic app requires a data connection to be any use, so hotel only. The London TripAdvisor app is very nice and so are all the others where the cities are supported if they cover the part of the city you want to visit.
- Flights / Seats / Airport Guides
- Flight Radar 24 – this is amazing for tracking aircraft and planespotting, but it requires data to be useful. Visit the website and be amazed.
- FlightTracker – still using this.
- SeatGuru – still using this, but it seems to have more links to other paid apps than anything else these days
- Airport Flight Tracker
- Subway/Metro
- Check for local guides
- Seoul has a few subway apps; Metroid seems better until you are there, then Seoul Subway becomes fantastic with GPS integration, downloaded timetables, trip planning and maps.
- London Tube Assistant is good.
- Check for local guides
- Currency Exchange Rates
- Xe Currency – caches last data so conversions work offline
- Voice Notes
- Easy Voice Recorder
- The city-guides have check-in and voice note capabilities too.
- ListNote – with voice recognition is amazing, but only if you have data.
- Music/Podcast Player
- Whatever you like; Astro Player, Music Folder Player – still using these.
- RSS Feed Cache
- RssDaemon – before I leave wifi for long periods, I’ll get the news updates to read while sitting in line.
- Languages
- WordLens – amazing!
- Euro Dictionary
- Google translate has off line modes
- Tourist Language Learn and Speak; A few words in the local language will get you far, but more and more English is the langufranca for the world.
- Offline epub/html/PDF Reader
- FBReader – hook this up to your home Calibre server!
- QuickOffice for PDFs
- Password Vault
- KeePassDroid – AES encryption with Keepass v1.x file compatibility
- Local web-browser – to view locally saved files.
Preloaded Data
Travel Data
I preload my devices with travel data for the locations I’m visiting. That means File —> Save As … HTML from popular travel sites that provide reviews, itineraries, and Things to Do. I use folders to keep this data organized by location or date. Sometimes both are used.
I grab itineraries from VirtualTourist, TravBuddy, WikiTravel, TripAdvisor.
I also store a local metro map as an image. Usually on arrival, the airport tourist booth has good-enough free maps. I prefer these.
I’ll grab Plus+Codes for important entrances to museums or college buildings – sometimes the address just isn’t enough and I end up walking from the wrong side of a huge palace to the entrance because the address just isn’t enough specifics.
In Florence, the hotel had sheet maps with all the tourist sites marked. These were better than trying to get some smartphone app to get GPS lock when in alleys on a sunny day. GPS eats batteries, so if we become too dependent on the GPS, the phone battery may not last all day. Of course, I travel with a huge external USB-charger these days, so cell battery life just isn’t an issue.
City Guides
TripAdvisor has city guides for over 30 popular world cities. This provides offline maps, reviews, itineraries, hotels, and a search capability. When you find yourself waiting 3 hours before some attraction you planned to see is open, being able to find some other, unplanned, nearby, attraction is nice. But people watching from a cafe can work too. ;)
Mass Transit Guides
There are many apps that provide subway guides for cities around the world, but these seem to all require a data connection and do not cache the data for a specific city. That means we need to pick a local metro-guide and hope they have an app. I tried to use those centralized apps, but never found one that would cache data. For subways, local apps seem to be the best.
Having a local app with detailed maps for each subway station is nice too. Some subways have multiple exits that can be over a block apart. Why not enter or exit on the side that is closest to the place you’d like to be? This is also helpful if the subway station supports transfers between different lines or to rail lines. Some of those transfer walkways can be long.
Language Tools
Tourish Language Learn and Speak is the app that has about all the words and phrases I can handle. No, it isn’t complete, but it has the main phrases.
- Do you speak English?
- I do not understand.
- Please / Thank you
- Hotel? Toilet? Check?
are the key phrases. It has over 20 different languages. To Americans, we think it strange to travel without speaking the local language, but most of the world works this way. In some cities, locals don’t speak the same languages, but they can understand each other well enough for commerce. An attempt at the language and a smile go very far, unless the shop is really busy.
Be certain that you install any dependencies, like the espeak tools.
Euro Dictionary
Works offline and has 13 languages.
Currency Exchange Rates
xe Currency is the app. It caches the last rates from the last connection, so you can use it while offline. Close is fine. Before I leave on a trip, I’ll decide how much local currency I need and figure out where to get it. Usually the airport will have an ATM, so I’m covered. I look for a USA-based or HBSC ATM, to make life easier. Knowing about how much money will be needed for the time in-country is a big help. On a 20 hour layover, I’ll get the equivalent of US$30 and use credit cards at tourist sites when possible. 20K won doesn’t really go very far. I’m just sayin. However, 25K Nepal Rupees can cover a weekend trip to the mountains.
Flight Tracking
I almost always fly overseas, not so much around the USA. Before a 35+ hour trip to a destination, I like to follow the fights for a few weeks before to get an idea of on-time travel, maintenance issues, and just when they take off or land. I was lucky to get FlightTrack for $0.10 during a Google sale.
- Flight Radar 24*
I’m a plane spotter and like to collect rides on different aircraft, different airlines, and watch airplanes land and take-off all day. This app requires data but it is amazing to know exactly which flight is landing or taking off when looking at the runway of an airport. I’m not as crazy about it as some people are – they will fly from Europe to the USA and arrange to have flights bounce them through 10 cities trying to get on specific airlines and specific aircraft. Then they post the experience for each trip, the aircraft, seating, and try to get a cockpit view at the end of the flight. Once I was taken to the cockpit in Nepal during the flight on a Beechcraft 1900D – amazing. Plus the view out that window wasn’t bad at all.
Seat Guru
Also an online app, but knowing which seats suck before you request an assignment is good. I have long legs, so spending 14 hrs in a center seat is painful. Aisle, please. I’ve also learned that Airbus planes are not as comfortable to me as Boeing aircraft. I don’t know why this is. Spent 7 hrs on an Boeing 777-200LR in couch and don’t have any complaints. Actually, that was the most comfortable coach seat that I’ve ever had. The flight was very nice and smooth too. There was 2 extra inches of leg room for me, even in coach. The next flight of about 15 hrs on a 747-400 wasn’t too bad, but I just couldn’t get comfortable. I was in row 29 – the 2nd row of coach seats. Pretty much every 777 that I’ve ever flown was comfortable. A320s are like 737s and MD-82s – painful.
Airport Guides / Apps
Entering a strange airport can be daunting, especially if it is huge. I like to get my bearings just before landing by looking at a terminal map for the airport. Large airports will have maps available online. Small airports may or may not, but if they are small, that means we don’t really need much of an overview. Sadly, these apps seem to be like the subway apps and want a live data feed to work. Exactly how complex is getting around the Austin or Cape Town airports? OTOH, the data for IAH was over 6 months out of data. I’d planned to lunch at a specific restaurant in a different terminal – only to get there and ask a worker where it was – “closed over 6 months ago.” Was really looking forward to some Texas BBQ. In IAH, every different terminal has different security checkpoints, so this was a 30 min commitment.
Netbook
If an airplane is involved, I will use a netbook for travel, instead of a powerful laptop. However, a chromebook running Ubuntu with a Core i3 and 4G of RAM and 1080p screen is almost a $400 ultrabook these days. Size and weight matter more than performance. Less than 3lbs with 11 hrs of battery is nice too. It will probably be a remote desktop tool anyway, since I use NX (x2go).
This computer has Debian-stable with whole-drive encryption and just enough storage (128G) to move photos and travel videos over from my daily travel snapshots. If the hotel has sufficient bandwidth, I’ll push those photos to my home server overnight. It is always best to have these precious memories in multiple places quickly.
The offline data placed on the smartphone above is also placed on this netbook. Reading articles about Topaki Palace on a smartphone is not as easy as on a 10"-13" netbook/chromebook. Yes, having both is important. Never assume that internet connectivity will work in any hotel. I’ve been burned a few times. Also, some hotels have wired ethernet connections so a travel wifi router is handy.
Camera
I’ve tried to use the built-in camera on smartphones a few times. Usually the photos turn out as crap. Megapixels don’t mean much with a crap lens. These are phones first, not cameras. For an emergency, I can see where the camera on a smartphone would be good enough – like at an accident scene, but for my tourist memories, a $120 point-n-shoot blows away any smartphone camera – the lenses are much, much nicer and the photos show that.
Recently picked up a $200 Travel Zoom Canon which is amazing with a 30x zoom. Better for snapping photos of landing aircraft. ;) This replaced a Canon 300HS, which was very nice too. Both handle low-light situations and vibrations really well. If your travel camera is 3+ yrs old, the newer models are a huge bump up in photo qualities and there isn’t any need to spend $400+.
Almost every photo that I’ve taken with the Nexus 4 comes out blurry. The instantaneous focus setting basically sucks, IMHO. This has been fixed in Android 5, but the cameras built-into smartphones just cannot touch the quality of a $100-$300 Point-n-shoot camera. Seriously.
Paper and Pencil
None of these apps will work if your smartphone is stolen, so be sure to have critical data on a piece of paper with your passport.
- Hotel name, address, telephone number
- Emergency Contacts – family, banks, credit cards, consulate, insurance
Keep these things with your passport and main financial assets in a money belt or shoulder wallet under your clothes. When on any public transportation, play finger the pickpocket so you can be aware of the risks. I make my back and left side completely worthless for any pick pocket. Nothing in the back or left side pockets. My daypack is held very low, in front of me with an arm pressed tightly against the right-hand front pants pocket that has my 1-day cash. Under my shirt hanging under an armpit is a shoulder wallet with most of the cash, credit cards, passport, vaccination cards, and important contacts. Nothing is hanging from a belt on the outside like I would have back in my home city. Definitely NOT any smartphone.
Test Before Travel
Ok, so to be certain this stuff works the way you think it works, go into airplane mode and try to use the apps. Take notes, perhaps voice notes, about each so you can search for another app. Apps that seem to work just fine will fail. Airplane mode will also save the battery. Pulling the SIM will help too.
Limitations
This is a fairly limited list of apps. With over 500,000 apps available, nobody can know them all. Further, I’ll use free apps over paid apps every time. The paid apps on my devices were $0.10. Most of those paid apps do not get much use at all, if any. Only GPS Essentials has been worth the cost to me. Navmii is pretty good these days too, but be certain to check the route it creates. Sometimes it does stupid things – like take an exit 3 mi before 2 interstates merge, go through a city to the other interstate and get on it. Or in downtown Atlanta, it doesn’t know that I-75N is a right exit and I-85N is a left exit. The voice directions are completely backwards and need to be ignored.
Wired article about Off-line GPS apps.
Which travel apps have you found useful? Please share with everyone and explain what is great and what sucks about it.
Thanks for this. I’ll be abroad in a couple of weeks and this comes in handy for double-checking. Also, I always remind myself to keep an eye on the chargers; case in point: when choosing between my ultrabook and my Nexus 7 tablet, I went with the tablet because I don’t have to lug a big charger around and I can also use the same charger for both my Nexus phone and tablet.
Although not as convenient as a laptop/netbook, I can always remote to my desktop using Splashtop.
Regards,
@Gaston: Chargers are important, so is the portable memory used in all these devices.
I replace a SONY camera that only used MemoryStick with a Canon that supports SDHC memory. I purchase only microSD cards that are widely supported on tablets, cameras, laptops and netbooks too.
BTW, a netbook power supply is half the size of a laptop brick.
I’d also point out that remote access from hotels may or may not work.
Thanks for mentioning Splashtop. I need to check that out, but leery of allowing any 3rd party middle-man access to systems. In fact, it may be a violation of corporate policy to do so for many companies, mine included.
I agree that RDP and VNC are slow. Sadly, I haven’t discovered any Android NX client that would allow fast remote access.
Got a story on this one myself: At the start of this year, my boss went to South Africa for 3 weeks. My boss likes staying in touch with the happenings of his office like any good boss should, but my boss can also be… let’s say “extremely frugal” at times. He wanted us to install some app chat app so he could chat for free.
That wasn’t going to fly with me. He was going to have wifi when there, so I set up a Google Voice number for him and GrooVe IP Lite on his phone so he could call/text that way instead (set the phone to airplane mode and re-enabled wifi to guarantee only a wifi signal).
He used it a bit, including when in a tight situation with his flight back, so I got some nice bonus points. But most importantly: I didn’t have to install some app on my phone that would have most likely tried to access all my contacts info along with who knows what else. Texting and voice calls while abroad all for free is quite nice, though obviously it won’t be your usual number, but the one for the SIP service.
Google Translate for Android also recently added offline support, just have to download the language files beforehand.
For a slightly different view about this same topic, see this HowToGeek article.
Just returned from a trip to South Africa and Europe. Used the apps above.
Also ended up using Wifi-Analyzer to troubleshoot the hotel’s Wifi – they needed to reboot the router on my half of the hotel. The desk tried to be helpful, but didn’t have a clue. They were also using a pfSense voucher system that only a few of the desk people could use – waiting 3 hrs for a voucher is not hotel service, IMHO. The voucher expired 24 hrs too early and for my friend, it didn’t work. He had to get a new voucher. What a pain in the ass. Why not just change the WPA PSK every week instead? It isn’t like travelers will be scamming the free wifi after they leave.
Met a bunch of fun locals from waiters, waitresses, hotel staff, Linux users at the Cape Town LUG … thanks guys for letting me speak.
Fully discovered the power of the built-in photo app for Android 4.2.x – amazing panoramic photos. Left-to-right and down-to-up.
Gate Guru let me down. The data was WRONG for IAH restaurants that had closed months ago. We were burned twice that day by Gate Guru. The lack of offline maps was frustrating too. Sure, lots of people have data plans that work around the world. I don’t. I do get access to airline lounges with free wifi, so I’m not always disconnected, but those lounges aren’t always in the same terminal building where I need to be for flights.
A quick google found a few more similar articles, sadly these tend to be north American centric:
Used almost all these apps on a trip to Singapore and Thailand last fall. I was never completely lost … except when underground in subways or in a huge underground shopping mall complex that didn’t seem to end, but that is a different story. ;)
Also found that my USA pre-paid cellular service can be switched to an unlimited service for a day for $2. When on travel in the USA to a strange city, this is definitely worth the extra costs just to get FreeNAV google POI lookups!
Spent over 6 weeks out of the country in 2013. It was a good year. ;)