Travel Apps

We used Trip Advisor the most on our recent trip to Italy for restaurant considerations and it was extremely helpful. We also had our bank apps ( BA and Charles Schwab) to check our balances after our ATM withdrawals. Also useful were Currency Calculator and CityMaps2Go. But, all of this was possible because we only were connected to the web using WiFi at our hotels, agritourismos and B&Bs, instead of getting charged for international data roaming on the phone side as many have posted on this board.

sally, As you're travelling with an iPhone, have you checked out the costs for data roaming? If you "access it without being near a Wifi" you'll be using the cellular network and the roaming charges can be horrendous! Cheers!

Hi Sally, Google Translate is a great translater app you can download for free, and save expressions and sentences w/out accessing the intranet. You can download all the phrases you might need before you go, and then access them wherever with your data roaming disabled. Otherwise most travel apps other than the currecy converter will require data access. That converter will update and use data, but can be used with data disabled.

Just make sure to sync your TripIt before you leave, then you don't need to worry about the wifi (to do this, open TripIt, and then open your trip so it can sync - it caches everything). If you follow the search instructions on the helpline page, there are several other older posts that answered your question for suggested apps. Also, be VERY careful using wifi to access your bank accounts through your phone - you don't know who is watching you.

Save your TripIt itinerary as a PDF and use iBooks or Goodreader to access it. I had a data SIM card from iphonetrip.com and found it so useful to have data when traveling last month. I made my own maps using google maps and was able to access them on my iphone with an app called cartographer. Rick Steves' has free audio tours of many cities in Italy.

Thanks Ken for the reminder. I just came from the Apple store and was told: 1. Airplane mode should be on all the time. You will know from the picture of a plane on upper left corner. 2. To make sure 'Wifi' is on. This way I can avail of free wifi connection if available. 3. Also, no need for voltage converter with Iphone - just the
adapter.

sally, Thanks for the clarification. I'd suggest checking the Airplane mode periodically during the trip, as I've heard of a few cases where the Cellular access "mysteriously" turned back on. If you reset your Usage Meter, you'll be able to monitor that. Cheers!