Living in the city these days is pretty sweet. You’re well connected and you’ve got apps for everything. However, most local apps are only useful within your current city or country. If you travel often, here are some essential apps to help you find your way in a foreign urban jungle.
Living in the city these days is pretty sweet. You’re well connected and you’ve got apps for everything. However, most local apps are only useful within your current city or country. If you travel often, here are some essential apps to help you find your way in a foreign urban jungle.
Like most urban commuter apps, Citymapper provides public transport information such as bus and train timings, routing, fare and travel estimation. What it does better is the sheer amount of real-time updates and details it provides about your journey. Even if you choose to travel on foot or bicycle, it’ll show you calories burned.
Or you can request for supported ride-sharing services such as Uber or Hailo directly from the app. Citymapper sources its data from multiple partners including Google, Apple, Yelp and Foursquare and is currently supported in over 30 cities around the world, Singapore included.
If you travel often or have friends and family that do, having a flight tracker at your fingertips is great for peace of mind and knowing where to go at the airport. The app allows you to search by airline, flight number, airport and even aircraft registration. FlightAware will return real-time flight status and other relevant information such as delays, cancellations or airport gate/ terminal changes. You can also view flights on a full screen map with weather overlay.
FlightAware doesn’t just track commercial air traffic control data sources, they operate their own global network of ADS-B receivers too.
Grab (formerly known as GrabTaxi) may not be as big as Uber, but if you live in and around Southeast Asia, you’ll probably have a higher chance getting a Grab ride than an Uber, especially in suburban areas. As a ride-sharing app, you can book standard taxis, limos and private vehicles. Taxi rides are usually based on standard taxi meter fare while private cars under GrabCar has a fixed fare, which is great if you don’t like surprises.
While you can pay by card, cash is the default option, and a preferred one in the region, making Grab the more flexible choice in most instances.
Despite the dubious looking logo, The Entertainer is a discount catalog—as in physical coupon book—that’s been around since 2001. It’s unique in that every coupon is a 2-for-1 deal, be it dining, beauty treatments or hotel stays. A new book is published every calendar year and coupons are valid throughout. The app version offers the same deals.
The downside is that individual subscriptions work only in the country you buy into. However, the sheer number of deals and the fact that each one can possibly recoup the cost of subscription makes it more than worth it.
