Before Jake and I embarked on our year-long adventure, we did a clear out of our phones along with the rest of our lives. After having read numerous recommendations as to the best apps to download whilst travelling, we arrived in Peru armed with every travel app under the sun.
Now nearly at the end of our South American leg of our Inca to Inuit adventure, there were most definitely a couple of apps we never even looked at and some apps that we simply couldn’t have survived without.
Here are our 5 Best Travel Apps For Travelling In South America.
1. Spanish-English Dictionary | Offline Translation With Pronunciation
No matter how good your Spanish is there will always be a word on a menu, sign or form you’re just not sure about. With Jake and I being new to Spanish this offline dictionary was a godsend and an app we use almost every day.
BEST FEATURES:
It works completely offline so you don’t need to have wi-fi to check a word. Particularly helpful in remote areas of Peru and Bolivia
You can switch seamlessly between English and Spanish, allowing you to translate back and forth between languages.
Hear how words are pronounced – If you need to communicate in Spanish but don’t know the word or know it but aren’t sure how it’s pronounced, this app has a feature that enables you to hear how a word is pronounced even whilst offline.
2. Duolingo
Perhaps my favourite of all the apps listed, this is a great fun and free tool for learning either Spanish or Portuguese. The app teaches you to read, write, speak and listen taking you through from the basics to more advanced levels.
BEST FEATURES:
Provides a great grasp of the basics, which if you’re new to either Spanish or Portuguese like Jake and I is extremely useful.
Encouraged to practice frequently through the levels in order to keep your “power-up”. Failure to do so means you have to go back and revisit the levels you’ve already done. Great for keeping a grip of the basics
Can be accessed offline – which is really helpful for long bus journeys.
3. Booking.com
At the start of our Inca to Inuit trip, Jake and I were solely using Hostel world and AirBnB to book our accommodation, however, one use of booking.com and we were hooked. We had wrongly assumed that Booking.com only list pricier options however we were very wrong. We found that it listed the majority of hostels Hostel world were offering plus guest houses and BnB’s.
BEST FEATURES:
The more you book with Booking.com the more you save. If you make ten reservations through Booking.com you unlock Genius membership status with gives you 10% on bookings plus access to special deals.
Add your reservation to Apple passbook. Although not a revolutionary feature it has proven to be extremely useful in allowing us to access addresses and maps whilst offline. Very handy after a long and tiring bus journey
Free Cancellations. One of my favourite features of booking.com is that most of their listings have free cancellation up until the same day as the reservation. This allows us to secure rooms well in advance, especially where demand is high but also have the flexibility to cancel the same day should we find somewhere better and cheaper when we arrive.
4. Skype | Both Desktop and Mobile Versions
Now I know this is on every travelling app list but I can’t tell you how many pickles this app has gotten us out of. By loading only £10 of skype credit we were able to make very cheap calls either back home to our Insurance companies or banks or internationally to domestic numbers to book flights etc. Having battled with pay-phones for the first 5 weeks of our trip finally having Skype was not only a timesaver it meant that we didn’t have to worry about discussing our bank or insurance details in public.
BEST FEATURES:
Free audio and video calls and instant messaging to your friends and family back home
You can share your credit with your travel buddy. One Skype account can be logged in from multiple devices meaning that you and your travel buddy can share the same account and Skype credit
It’s so cheap! We have been travelling for 3 months and have only used £4 and I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had to make overseas calls
5. SkyScanner
Although Jake and I have done the majority of our South American adventure by either bus or car there have been occasions when a flight has worked out cheaper and quicker.
BEST FEATURES:
Setup daily price checker email alerts about a certain flight and date, perfect if you want to keep an eye on the feasibility of a certain route
Scan flights across the space of a month to find the cheapest date. Luckily travelling allows you the luxury of having some flexibility when it comes to making plans. Skyscanner has a nifty month in view option which allows you to scan for the cheapest date.
