Best apps for travel in Asia
If you Google the best apps for Southeast Asia you will find a multitude of different lists, some useful and some not so useful. In the month that I have spent here so far, here are the most useful apps that I use almost daily (basically I just needed something to write about).
12Go
Until I lived in Edinburgh I very rarely used buses in Scotland, primarily due to the fact that they were usually a fairly grim affair and I was a snobby wee arsehole. In Asia, Vietnam in particular, buses are one of the best, if not the best, ways to get about. I have already written about the surrealness of sleeper buses (see here), but as long as you snort a line of motion sickness tablets prior to boarding, then they are great. 12Go is the app/website I have used to book every trip and will continue to do so. You put in your pickup location, destination, travel date(s), and the app then shows all the transport methods available to you, alongside user reviews. One of the other benefits is that it covers most Asian countries, so you can also book border crossings on it.
GetYourGuide
Not all guides are created equally. I have been on four tours since being in Asia. Two of the guides and tours were excellent, two were not. This can make or break your experience and turn an exciting trip into a boring one or a dull one into a great one. GetYourGuide shows various deals and companies that offer tours. As you would expect, you can check out user reviews and grab some deals with it.
**Slight apropos of nothing, but if you are in Cambodia and are thinking of booking a tour of Angkor Wat, then I wouldn’t recommend it. It can be handy to have someone explain a bit about the temples, but honestly, just do a little bit of research and go see the ones that you want to. We booked a tour and wish that we had just gone ourselves, as we missed a lot of cool-looking ones. Neither of us could be bothered going again the next day as, while amazing, there are only so many old temples that you can look at.
Grab
Asia’s version of Uber, although Uber might work here, I haven’t actually checked. The app is great for either ordering a taxi, tuk-tuk or food. Unlike hopping into a taxi or tuk-tuk on the street, where the potential to get scammed is higher, the prices on Grab are fixed, so you know exactly what you will be paying. The prices are also shockingly low, which sucks ass for the drivers but is great for the consumers. On a few occasions, we have been on journeys that ended up costing literal pennies.
Google Translate
I have travelled around most of Central Europe and the Balkans, yet it wasn’t until I arrived in Asia that Google Translate was properly and regularly used. It has been a lifesaver (not literally let’s not be too dramatic) but it could be depending on the situation. Vietnamese is a hard enough language to speak before adding a Scottish accent. There is only so much that interpretive dance can help with. The camera option in which you can scan and translate writing in real time is incredibly handy. Pick the languages you need for the countries you are going to and download them for offline use, you will thank yourself later.
Google Maps
Pretty self-explanatory, no idea where anything is, so just open the app, search nearby and then follow the directions. If you are lucky, it will take you where you need to go. If not, then you will have the complete Google Maps experience: cursing it and saying ‘It must be around here somewhere’ or ‘this can’t be it/right’.
Hotel ones – Booking/Airbnb/Hostelworld etc
Look, I am going to assume that you have either left your country before or even just booked a night away somewhere, and as such, you have used or at least heard of these two. So there isn’t much new to say. What I will say is this: don’t just look at the scores next to the accommodation. Sort reviews by newest and also Google search the shit out of anywhere you like the look of. You can’t guarantee anything, but it is the best preparation that you can do. We recently booked an Airbnb for a month in Ho Chi Minh. The place had good reviews and was at a good price, so we went with it. It was quite literally a mouldy shit hole. No offense. Some dirt you can live with, massive amounts of mould above the bed, however, is something you can not and should not live with, never mind pay for. Thankfully, Airbnb support was fast, supportive and processed the refund quickly.
Entertainment apps – Kindle and any games
You’ll be travelling a lot, it gets boring. Having something to keep you occupied is beyond vital. I have read more books this year than I have in the whole of my life.
Other mentions
These two apps haven’t been used much (or at all) in Asia yet they were a complete Godsend while travelling through Central Europe and the Balkans.
Park4Night
When we were travelling around the Balkans, this app was worth its weight in gold. You sign up for a free account (there is a paid option, but I can’t remember why, so it most likely isn’t worth it, or at least it wasn’t for me anyway), and then you can search for places that other users have recommended as being good for camping. The app is primarily for campers and minivans; however, we were travelling around in a 17-year-old Honda CR-V and it worked just as well. Alongside places to park up for the night, the app also highlights other points of interest, such as garages and locations where you can get free water.
Now,, while the app was primarily great, it did have a few problems. A lot of the time, due to the locations being more often than not off the main road, the coordinates took you either past or near where you wanted to go and you would need to figure the rest out yourself. The quality of some of the places left a lot to be desired, too. One night, in Bosnia, we found a spot with high reviews. After missing the turning for it twice, we eventually ended up heading into the bushes. The ‘road’ was just weeds that had grown big enough to reach the underside of the car, there were potholes along the way that clearly had been caused by Supermans pod crash landing to Earth, and after a few minutes of driving straight further into the weeds and bushes, we arrived at a very small circular area complete with shrine. At this point, the sun had set, and we were in the midst of waist-high weeds, a shrine, and complete silence. It was fucking terrifying. After trying to manoeuvre the car out, much like the scene in Austin Powers, we sped away as fast as old Bertha could take us, all while searching for the number of the Ghostbusters. Thankfully, a twenty-four-hour garage wasn’t too far away, and a less horrifying night was spent there.
Workaway
While you need to pay to sign up for the app, it is potentially worth its weight in gold. There are opportunities all over the world.
This site led to me working on a farm in Serbia and also house/pet sitting for five weeks in Ireland. The random variance of options, abundance of experiences that you would never get during ‘normal’ travelling and the potential to travel for a lot less make it worth a punt alone. Just be aware that some countries will require you to have certain visas if you want to do Workaway there.