The Travel Apps I Trust
There is a certain kind of calm that finds you when you travel with intention — when the objects you carry, physical or digital, feel like extensions of how you move. Not noise. Not clutter. Just quiet tools that soften the rhythm of the journey.
Over the years, drifting between cities — pale mornings in London, warm ferry crossings in the Mediterranean, soft evenings in Vancouver — I’ve shaped a small suite of apps that stay with me. Clean interfaces, thoughtful design, and the sort of quiet function that lets you understand a place without disrupting it. The feeling deepens each season, especially when drifting between cities shifts into something slower, more cinematic, more intentional.
This isn’t a list of hacks.
It’s a travel toolkit — minimal, elegant, enduring.
The Art of Getting There
Planning made soft and clear.
Flighty
A beautifully composed timeline of your journey — calm updates, intuitive delay predictions, and early signals before the airport even speaks. It feels like travelling with someone unshakeable.
Skyscanner
A simple way to breathe through possibilities. Flexible dates, whole-month views, and soft comparisons. A place to explore without rushing.
Moving Through Cities
Understanding the shape of a place.
Apple Maps
Quietly precise, beautifully designed, and softer to navigate. Its clean layout makes new cities feel close, even before you’ve learned their rhythm.
Citymapper
A quiet essential in metropolitan cities — the softest, clearest route through London, Paris, New York. Minimal detail, maximum clarity.
Stays and Soft Landing Spaces
Finding places that hold you.
Orbitz
For the moments when you need a grounded place to rest — hotels, boutique stays, somewhere with enough structure to feel supported after long travel days.
Booking.com
For quick, calm decisions — a clean overview when days move fast.
Quiet Organisation
Soft structure for life on the move.
Apple Notes
My simplest travel companion. Packing lists, ideas, itineraries, favourite cafés — everything lives in a clean, minimal space that mirrors how I think. No noise, no pressure, just clarity.
Flighty
For the details that matter when moving between places — gate changes, delay predictions, real-time tracking — all composed in a clear, cinematic timeline. It has become the only flight app I trust.
Language, Culture, Ease
Arriving gently.
Duolingo
Light daily practice that colours the edges of your first moments in a new place.
Google Translate
Photo scanning for menus, handwritten notes, street signs — small acts of understanding that make each day feel grounded.
Money, Cards, Confidence
Practical elegance with a quiet foundation.
XE
A calm, reliable way to understand currency wherever you land. Clear live rates, simple conversions, and a sense of grounding when you’re moving between countries with different rhythms.
Revolut
A clear, modern way to budget, withdraw, and manage spending. It sits neatly alongside the practical side of travel — a flow that continues with tools like the eSIMs that keep you connected across countries.
Weather, Light, and the Creative Eye
For travellers who care about colour, shadow, and timing.
WeatherPro
Accurate forecasts for coastal days, early departures, and warm outdoor dinners.
Sun Seeker
Golden hour, blue hour, sun paths — a calibrated guide for photographers, designers and anyone who notices light first.
Creative Tools on the Move
Documenting with intention.
Lightroom Mobile
Simple, cinematic editing that respects the light you captured.
Unfold
Minimal template design for visual journaling — soft, editorial layouts for moments worth keeping.
The Tools That Travel Well
If you’d like to explore the physical items that accompany these apps — the travel chargers, cables, wallets and quiet essentials — you’ll find a refined selection in my Amazon Travel Edit. It pairs softly with the digital tools, just as well as the curated objects in my collection of travel essentials that actually travel well.
