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In our fast-paced world, travel is an opportunity to slow down, put away your screen, get a little lost and strike up an impromptu conversation with a stranger. We're all for this, but smart tech can go a long way in helping you travel with greater ease. We find the following apps to be helpful for savvy travelers, regardless of where you're heading.
Airports and the Act of Travel
Global Entry: Our favorite way to breeze through customs on return to the USA. The application and background check can be a bit tedious but the $120 enrollment fee, inclusion of TSA PreCheck and validity of 5 years should make this the #1 must-have on every frequent international traveler's list. I have their app on my phone but can't say I've ever used it.
Tip: Each individual, including children, must possess their own Global Entry Clearance for this to be effective for a group or family. Also, after October 2024, children under 18 will not need to pay an individual enrollment fee when a parent or legal guardian is already a Global Entry Member.
Mobile Passport Control: If you don't have Global Entry, this is a great alternative that can help expedite long customs lines.
Clear: Provides an expedited security experience when you arrive at an airport in the USA and uses biometrics for identity verification. In many cases you only show your boarding pass. Check your credit card benefits - many include Clear membership as part of their perks. Tip: many airports have one security checkpoint that is dedicated to Clear + Pre-Check only. In Seattle this is Checkpoint 1, all the way to looker's left.
Timeshifter: Sometime in my late 30s, jet lag started to hit HARD. My days of sipping lounge and boarding bubbles, binging 9 hours of foreign films and hitting the ground running were over. But even if you fly with restraint, the schedule aboard an international flight does not set you up to successfully slip into the time zone you are traveling to. Timeshifter can help with that, advising the best times to eat, sleep, avoid bright light and abstain from caffeine or food in order to beat jet lag and arrive on "time zone." I tried it last year on a 40 hour marathon from Windhoek, Namibia to Salt Lake City, Utah and arrived in the desert for a Thanksgiving mountain biking and canyoneering trip feeling fresh and rested.
Carbon Calculation: If you want to understand your trip's carbon footprint and offset your emissions, Sustainable Travel International has the best tool we know of to calculate your emissions and offset your trip via rigorously well-vetted projects in their Climate Impact Portfolio.
Tip: When Outlier Journeys arranges your flights (in-country or international economy) through our partner's at Exito Travel, we pay to offset your carbon emissions through their Planet Care Partnership with Sustainable Travel International.
Trip Management & Travel Research
Oasis Travel App: When you travel with us, your itinerary, flights, contact information and all travel documents will be delivered via the Oasis Travel App. We love it because it is simple to use (luddites - we see you!), well organized, tracks your flights in real time and is accessible regardless of wifi or connectivity. Get it on the Apple Store or Google Play for mobile devices.
Airline Apps: However you are flying, it's best practice to have that airline's app downloaded to your phone, with messaging enabled in case of fight delays or cancellations. Big kudos to United on their most recent App rollout - by far the best in the business at the moment.
El Camino Travel Clubhouse: Aimed at helping bold, discerning and independent women travelers source the best travel recommendations from a community of peers, with a focus on independent boutique hotels and immersive experiences that support entrepreneurs at the local level. Kirsten is a member, contributor and a big fan of what they are building and several of our in-country partners are members as well. If this appeals to you and you like to do your own research, check it out. Membership starts at $90 annually.
Communication & Navigation
WhatsApp: The metric system of messaging apps. Ridiculously easy, useful and used by most of the world outside of the USA. When you travel with Outlier Journeys, we create a WhatsApp group at the start of your trip to facilitate easy communication between all parties involved - you, us and our in-destination partners. And if you aren't familiar with WhatsApp, we'll walk you through how to use it.
Airlao eSims: "Will my phone work in (insert country here)?" is a question that we field frequently. And the truth is, we don't know. It depends on your carrier and international plan options. But an Airalo eSim works for almost anyone, almost anywhere, on any smartphone, turning your phone into a local phone and connecting you to the local network for a set period of time. It's super affordable, easy to use and available in 200+ countries, eliminating costly roaming charges or the need to search for a local sim card vendor the minute you arrive in country. Only catch? You must own your phone, have it completely paid off and be able to unlock it in order to use Airalo.
Google Translate: One of our favorite apps! Download a language in advance so you can use the app without an internet connection, enable the camera feature to translate text in real time right through your phone's camera, and turn on transcribe to translate speech in other languages.
Babbel or Duolingo: For quick and practical language lessons you can put into use while traveling, we like both of these apps for different reasons.
Tip: At the very least, we encourage all travelers to learn how to say "Hello", "Please", "Thank You", introduce yourself and say "Goodbye" in the local language (or languages). A little effort goes a long way in fostering respect and forming a connection.
Waze: Have you ever been "googled" while driving in another country? Discovering that a suggested shortcut was actually a steep and muddy path through the jungle, completely impassable during the wet season? While Google Maps may lead you astray in other countries, Waze is less likely to do that, relying on user-generated routes and recommendations that factor in real-time data. It's our top pick for anyone self-driving throughout Latin America and Europe. Less useful in South Africa as of 2023.
Money Matters
XE: To track conversion rates and know how much you are actually withdrawing from an ATM, we refer to XE. Note that we DO NOT recommend it for international money transfers in multiple currencies due to transfer fees and markups. For that we recommend that you look into something like WISE.
Splitwise: An easy way to track shared expenses and easily settle balances on a trip. Make sure you turn on Simplify Payments to streamline settling up! NOTE: This app used to be free but they recently rolled out a paid Pro Version - the only way to access currency conversion, receipt scanning and add unlimited transactions vs. being restricted to a daily allotment. If you were used to all of these features before, the free version may frustrate you now, plus you have ads to contend with. As an alternative we have been playing with Splid and have found that is works pretty well and can handle expenses in multiple currencies. The UX isn't as intuitive and some steps are less obvious (plus you can't track payments directly from the app yet), but it does the hard thing well - tracks group expenses, merges currencies and simplifies balances owed.
Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments below or leave a message at travel@outlierjourneys.com if we neglected to include an app that you can't live without.
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