Postale
This iOS app combines
the fun of old-school postcards with the modern convenience of
social media. You can use your own just-shot vacation snaps to
create your card and the whole process takes mere minutes: Choose a layout and
background, add photo, title and message, then finish it off with an artsy
postmark. Send it straight from the
app using e-mail, Facebook or Twitter. A unique stamp is automatically added
that shows from where and when your card was transmitted. It’s a personal way of
updating family and friends on your how your holiday is going. 7twenty7.com/apps/postale
TripLingo
You’ll never be lost for words with TripLingo, a free app
that’s part phrasebook, part phonetics coach. Search the word bank in 13
languages – including German, Italian, Hindi and Japanese – for everything from
body parts and emotions to weather conditions and restaurant-relevant
vocabulary. A handy slang-slider translates must-know questions and pleasantries
in four different ways, from a formal approach to the most colloquial. An
automated voice coach can even fine-tune your accent. TripLingo.com
Associated Press
JetPac City Guides
This free iPhone app analyzes details of more than
100 million Instagram images to point travellers to the world’s hippest
hangouts, happiest places and best views. It ranks publicly shared digital photos by such details as the
amount of blue sky, the number of smiles, evidence of coffee cups or wine
glasses, and so on, to come up with Top 10 lists. The results are hit and miss.
If you’re heading to Paris, and want to know where the city’s best museums are,
you’ll be offered the usual (Louvre, Centre Pompidou, Musée d’Orsay). Searching
for the happiest places, however, leads to a list of nightclubs, restaurants,
bars and an office tower. Stay away from gimmicky recommendations and instead
look for coffee shops, dog-friendly places and where parents go with kids. jetpac.com
Thinkstock
Rove
Having trouble retracing the steps of your recent Roman holiday? This free iPhone app uses GPS data to track
all the places you’ve been. It works in the background to create a travel log of
sights, restaurants, hotels and shops that you’ve visited. The part
calendar/part map layout is easy to read and tracks whether you got somewhere on
foot, bike, bus or taxi. You can tailor things further by adding notes. I tried
it out on a weekend where I crossed town to do errands, met friends for lunch,
and went to see an exhibit at an art gallery. There were minor inaccuracies in
the data, but it’s easy to edit as you go. roveapp.com
Thinkstock
Symbolic App
Looking for a pair of chopsticks in Tokyo or a cut of sirloin in Argentina?
Symbolic App can help you find the right
words. The iOS app is loaded with more than 3,000 symbols in English, French,
Spanish, Chinese and Japanese, depicting everything from basic food and drink
and health-related matters to hard-to-decipher settings on foreign washing
machines. Use the search function to find the right word or phrase. While the
pictorial dictionary includes a wide range of categories, it takes a while to
navigate the pages. Under “Security,” for instance, I have to scroll randomly
through symbols like bomb and battery explosion before finding a way to say
“immigration.” symbolic-app.com
Travel List
Get your suitcase in order! This iOS
app takes the guesswork out of packing. Start by
setting up a series of lists based on the type of holiday you’re taking (beach,
safari, city weekend, family holiday, and so on) and populate them from the
preset menus. Within minutes, I scroll through categories that include personal
care, clothing, gadgets and documents, and pick must-have items from GPS and
mosquito repellent to bikinis, belts and baby sunscreen. Specify quantities of
each item and tick them off once they’re packed. While there are other
packing-list apps out there, this one has a simple layout, is easy to navigate
and it allows users to copy pre-existing lists, so you don’t have to start from
scratch every time. travellistapp.com