Summer vacation is just about here, and while that means hanging out with friends and family, barbecuing, and working in the yard to some, two words quickly surface in the minds of others – ROAD TRIP!
While it’s important to pack all that you’ll need with you on the road and to prepare yourself and your car for a road trip, you should also prepare your phone for the trip ahead. That means updating it, installing emergency contacts, charging it (and bringing your charger with you), and, of course, installing some awesome apps to help you along the way!
Here are 8 essential apps that you should keep in mind to download for your next road trip, wherever you go!
Spotify (free for Apple and Android) – Don’t have time to burn lots of discs or figure out the perfect playlist on your iPod? No problem! Just download Spotify, and you can search for songs as you go, make your own playlist beforehand, or even grab songs from other members’ playlists on the app. With Spotify at your fingertips, you can feel free to play Motown tunes when you visit Detroit, “Sweet Home Chicago” when you gaze in awe at the city of Chicago, or “Lights” by Journey when you swing by San Francisco.
While the app itself is free to download, you need to pay a monthly fee of $9.99 to listen to tunes at will. But that’s a small price to pay to save money on discs or stop pirating music, right? Right!
Karaoke Anywhere (free for Apple products) – Tired of listening to the music artists sing their songs? Got an Apple product? Then download Karaoke Anywhere, the world’s first and only fully-featured karaoke application with a streaming library of over 14,000 songs! Now you can sing your own renditions of your favorite songs with your friends while on your journey!
GasBuddy (free for Apple products and Android) – These days, road trips can be quite a pricey expenditure. In fact, it would probably cost between $300 and $600 to drive from Chicago to LA on Route 66. With GasBuddy, you can find the cheapest gas in the area around you. So don’t worry about trying to figure out if the gas station you’ve just found has the lowest prices in the area. Just use GasBuddy!
License Plate Travel Game ($0.99 for Apple products, free on Android) – Road trips are indeed fun, but sometimes if you’re traveling through a boring area for several hours at a time, it can get a little monotonous to see the same flat lands over and over and over… and over… (yawn!). That’s why there’s the License Plate Travel Game! This app lets you play continuously throughout your entire trip because it logs all of your finds and keeps a tally of all the plates you see. You get one point for plates that you’ve already found and two for new plates. This is a great app to have with you if you’re traveling on Interstates for a long time!
Air Horn (free for Apple products) – Speaking of boring, sometimes your travel companions may find themselves taking a snooze on the road. And while it’s okay to sleep on the trip a bit, you might get annoyed that they’re missing all the fun or that they’re not doing their share of driving. Air Horn is the perfect solution to wake up your travel buddies, especially if they’re heavy sleepers! Just shake your iPhone, and watch your friends come back to their senses! This app is also great to use at any sporting events you may attend on your trip.
Yelp (free for Apple products and Android) – When you travel to new locations, you know nothing about your new surroundings. How on earth can you know which restaurants are good or which hotel is best for you? That’s where Yelp comes in! You can read reviews and see the ratings that other consumers have left about all sorts of businesses in new locations and see for yourself what’s good and what’s not!
The Weather Channel App – (free for Apple products and Android) – Do the clouds look dark and ominous ahead of you? Can’t tune into the radio to hear if there are any thunderstorm or tornado warnings? Never fear! Just use The Weather Channel app! You can type in any location to see the current weather, the 10-day forecast, and much more! You can check the radar to see if those looming clouds hold rain or threaten severe weather.
iExit Interstate Exit Guide ($1.99 on Apple products, free on Android) – It’s inevitable. There will come a time or two on your road trip that you will wonder when the next gas station, rest area, hotel without bedbugs, or Steak ‘n’ Shake will show up. Instead of having to guess and keep traveling further and further on the road tired, hungry, and nearly out of gas, use iExit Interstate Exit Guide! It will show you what awaits you at the next exit and the ones afterward! This app is super handy to have on the road!
Be safe on the road, and remember – DO NOT text and drive! In fact, avoid using your apps while you’re behind the wheel. That’s what traveling friends are for! And while your friends are using all these fun apps for you on the road, nudge him or her and tell ‘em to check us out on Facebook and Twitter! We will be releasing our Bodacious Case very soon, so get caught up on all the details, stat! Happy trails!
I am so glad to have come across this list! My coworkers at Dish and I will be taking our very first LONG road trip this summer, and honestly we had no idea where to start when it came to travel apps. I’m going to download all of the ones you’ve mentioned; as I’m positive they will all come into very good use! Karaoke Anywhere sounds like too much fun! I know my friends will be falling asleep on me during the trip too, so I’ll probably use that time to catch up with my favorite shows on my Dish Remote Access app. That app allows me to view all of my shows from home on my phone, live or recorded; anywhere I go in the world on 3G/4G or Wi-Fi. If they happen to fall asleep when I can’t get a connection on my phone, than I’m thinking Air Horn will be very useful, lol!
Kay, thank you so much for the kind words! We are honored! 🙂 We hope you have a fun, safe trip with your coworkers, and put that Air Horn to good use! 😉