Since this upcoming weekend is Labor Day and offices around the country will be gearing down on Friday for the long weekend, we’ve decided to get a head start by sending you our Weekly Social Media Reads a day early.
And to help make your Labor Day travels a bit less stressful, below are our favorite apps that we count on to make our road warrior lives easier. Regardless of your destination this weekend, here are the top 10 GFM-approved travel apps you should download ASAP to make your next journey smoother.
Kayak – This app has intelligent filters that allow you to search for all the little travel details you prefer when flying (including preferred airports for layovers). We recommend using this app just for research, then booking through the carrier for the best results.
Seat Guru – If you’re like us, you’re either an aisle person or a window person when it comes to air travel. Use Seat Guru to find exactly what seats on certain flights and aircrafts are the best (extra legroom) and worst (next to the back lavatory), then ask accordingly for that seat assignment.
Free Wi-fi Finder – Sometimes you’ll do anything to get access to wifi when you’re on the road. Instead of paying an exorbitant fee for 5 minutes of internet, download Free Wi-Fi Finder and find the nearest hotspot to tap into (just don’t count on the reliability and speed of the connection once you find it).
Just Landed – Picking a friend up at the airport just got a whole lot easier. With Just Landed, you insert your friend’s flight number and instantly you’re provided with the flight’s landing time, when you need to leave your house to get to the airport on time, as well as the gate number of the flight. Don’t forget to ask for gas money.
Yelp – No surprise here. Yelp can truly change your life when it comes to traveling. From locating the best hole-in-the-wall Indian café near your hotel to finding a last-minute doctor if the meal doesn’t sit well, Yelp knows all.
AroundMe – Speaking of finding things while on the road, this app is also great specifically for cross-country car trips with the fam. If you need a gas station with a restroom or an ATM while driving through a random town, AroundMe will list your options and map out exactly how to get there.
Taxi Magic – Looking for a cab? Look no further than Taxi Magic, an on-demand cab service that allows you to schedule rides, track where your cab is through GPS so you know how close it is to your pick-up location, and pay for the ride through your phone. Waiting on hold for the dispatch operator is a thing of the past.
Open Table – This app saved us multiple times this year at SXSW. Picture a group of eight starving people who wanted to eat at 9:15 PM on the dot with no reservations in jam-packed Austin. Pull up Open Table and we immediately knew which restaurants had availability. One click and we were off to claim our reservation.
Weather Channel – This could potentially be the most underused app out there. When one of our team members was vacationing in Paris this summer, she used the Weather Channel app to determine her itinerary: Louvre on rainy afternoons, window shopping during unlikely sunny mornings, and an Eiffel outing when the clouds didn’t block the view from the top.
Fruit Ninja – This app has nothing to do with travel, except it’s saved our sanity during multiple long layovers and delays at O’Hare. Put simply, it’s a game where you slice fruit and yes, we dare you to try it and not get addicted immediately.
Safe travels and Happy Labor Day from the entire GFM Team!
