If you’re a person who flies a lot and you’re tired of sitting on your laptop trying to figure out how to plan your next jet-setting adventure, then you’ll probably need some of the top flight tracker apps out there. Making the most of your time on the ground is vital to ensuring that your trips happen quickly and smoothly, as well as making sure that you don’t break the bank. And of course, keeping your sanity is important, so if you can find a cheap flight, it’s important that it doesn’t involve eight layovers and takes four times longer than it needs to be.
So in the spirit of helping out the weary, shoelace-less masses everywhere, here’s four apps that will put your travel woes in the rear-view mirror.
Tripit – Your All-In-One Travel Companion
If you’ve ever gone on a long trip, or even just more than two places at once, you know that the paperwork and email trail can get pretty big pretty quick. What’s more, you need that pile for every little hotel confirmation, flight gate, bus station, whatever you might need to ensure that you get from point A to point B. That’s where Tripit comes in.
In many ways, it’s one of the top flight tracker apps on the market right now, since it can do so much (and even more when you upgrade to its Pro version). The free version allows you to hold your itinerary in one place, including travel arrangements, emails, confirmations, etc., and syncs it to your calendar. No more scrounging around in your email folders or shuffling through printed out pages, desperately searching for that number you forgot to highlight. It’ll also allow you to share the travel plans with your family, ensuring they know where you are and what’s going on. The paid version sweetens the deal by helping to locate alternate flights in case something falls through, notifying you of seat upgrades, reward-program tracking, and other great VIP benefits. Incredibly, that version is only $49/year (or a little over $4 a month for those who can’t divide instantly), so if you’re a frequent flyer, it’s definitely worth the investment. Just remember to make sure your data plan can handle the heavy lifting your phone’s going to be doing.
GateGuru – Your Concourse Navigator
Whether you use Google Maps or some other travel app to get to your airport, once you’re inside, you’re on your own. However, that’s where GateGuru comes in. While it also tracks your flight and gives you a little itinerary, it’s the details for the particular airport you’re in that GateGuru excels at. It’ll tell you individual wait times for each gate in the complex, as well as reviews of restaurants and other amenities in the airport just in case you’re stuck with a layover or a delayed flight. The app also allows you to find a rental through its partnership with Avis, in case you need a last-minute set of wheels. Where Tripit may be the app to oversee your trip at the macro level, GateGuru can be one of the top flight tracker apps at the micro level, delivering much-needed info on the creature comforts of the tiny city you’ve found yourself stuck in for however long until your plane gets there.
PackPoint – Never Forget Your Toothbrush Again!
When looking for the top flight tracker apps, something that’s really important is making sure that wherever you’re going, you have everything you’re going to need. It’s so easy to forget socks, toothbrushes, and heaven forbid, our electronics chargers. But with PackPoint, simply input your destination and answer a few questions regarding what you’re going to be doing when you get there, and it auto-creates a list for you in seconds. The list is fully customizable, allowing you to add items, remove items, or increase and decrease the amount of items in the list. From there, you can save it, email it, even share it with other PackPoint users, then get to work packing. Even better, this app can export its lists to Tripit, ensuring that this list fits into your overall digital itinerary and making Tripit that much cooler. If you use Evernote, PackPoint can talk to it as well as an added bonus. It’s available for free on both iOS and Android, so if you’ve got a big trip coming up, grab it today. Don’t forget to take in some of the local culture when you get to your destination, though.
Kayak – Find the Best Price for Your Flight
While making sure covering your bases in terms of the logistics of your trip is undoubtedly important, making sure you can afford the trip you want to take is just as vital. That’s where Kayak comes in. It compares thousands of travel sites and strings together flights, rental cars, hotels, all for a price that will leave your budget with ample breathing room. To make things better, Kayak also includes more in-depth functionality like price forecasting and warning you of when prices are going to rise or fall, to help your determine when your trip will be. It can also filter flights based on whether you’ve got a preference for a certain airline, making sure your frequent flyer miles are being used most effectively. Other great search filters include on-plane WiFi, Red Eye flights, and time of arrival and departure. Even better, the mobile app features deals you can’t get on Kayak’s normal desktop version, so it behooves you even more to use that instead.
Flying can be a pain for the unprepared, but these apps are a great first step to ensure that you’re not pulling your hair out in frustration because you’re stuck at security or languishing in an uncomfortable seat in an airport, waiting on a twelve-hour layover that could’ve been avoided. Don’t be a victim of travel fatigue before it even begins. Make sure you get these apps to focus on the fun of traveling instead of the nit-picky mundane details.
