Want to find good eats around town? There’s an app for that! Want to find your soulmate quick, fast and in a hurry? There are countless apps for that! Want to find cheap flight deals or even a private jet to hire (check out Jettly) for a spur of the moment trip to fulfil your wanderlust fantasies? Yes my friends. There’s an app for that too.
I am a traveler at heart; a wanderer of sorts. Having been ferociously bitten by the travel bug after I graduated, I began making plans to conquer world travel by the end of 2016. Of course when I began the Sallie Mae Challenge, my travel funds became just a figment of my imagination. So, what did I do?
I started researching inexpensive ways to visit new cities and countries around the world. The goal was to find ways that would cause minimal damage to my pockets. What better and more convenient way to scout out flight deals than to use what’s already at my millennial fingertips? I introduce you to smartphone apps.
I have compiled a brief list of three of the most reliable smartphone apps for travel. The best part is that all three are completely and spectacularly FREE!
Skiplagged
Skiplagged is a free smartphone app. It’s compatible with both iPhone and Android and compiles a list of the most inexpensive round-trip and one-way flights to your national and international travel destinations. This is the app that helped me snag a $78 round-trip flight from Atlanta to Raleigh, North Carolina and a $111 round-trip flight from Atlanta to Detroit! Best suited for the spontaneous traveler, Skiplagged can give you immediate access to cheap flights for those last minute trips across the country. To use it, you simply plug in your current location, your desired destination and the dates that you will be traveling. Similar to travel sites like Hotwire or Expedia, the most inexpensive tickets appear at the top, while flight prices begin to increase as you continue to scroll down.
In my experience, flight prices are AT LEAST $10 cheaper on Skiplagged than on any other popular travel site. A
Skyscanner
Skyscanner is a more recent download for me, but with it being another FREE smartphone app, I’m sure to find some good, inexpensive use for it sooner or later! It provides information on when flight prices are the most inexpensive during the year. To use it, simply enter your desired destination. Up will pop a screen that lists the average pricing for flights to your destination for the remaining months of the year. This gives you a general overview of when the best time to fly to a certain location is.
A downside to this app is that it does not allow you to purchase flight tickets within the app and you become responsible for finding these deals on the actual airline sites. While it’s not an ideal feature, Skyscanner will at least give you the airline for which the flight deal is good for. This means there’s not too much guessing when the time comes to book the flight.
Kayak
Kayak, an app more mainstreamed than the previously mentioned apps, seems to combine the low prices of Skiplagged with the airfare predictions of Skyscanner. It’s the ultimate app for airfare travel! The Kayak app searches hundreds of travel sites to provide the cheapest deals on flights, hotels and car rentals. Much like Hotwire and Expedia, Kayak offers comparisons between its prices and the prices offered through other travel sites. It also makes suggestions for choices in hotels to compliment your flight searches. The Kayak app is for the more thought-out traveler. It provides the option of planning for a more comprehensive trip and is the most recommended travel app compared against Hotwire and Expedia COMBINED.
If you know you want to book some flights to durban, do your research on these apps before you buy! There are always new and improved travel apps that are being developed, some of them overlapping in purpose. The upside to this is that there will always be a way to save on your wanderlusting tendencies and you’ll have to look no further than your smartphone.
