Well hello to you my reader chums! Reminiscing about Asia is in my mind constantly, I miss everything about the backpacking trip. I would love to be back travelling around in tuk-tuks, eating street food and seeing new places.

When I was travelling, there were many apps which made it easier to navigate my partner and me around, providing us with definitive answers to new places and experiences. If you're backpacking around Southeast Asia, these are the top apps to download.

Booking.com

I've been using Booking.com for years as it's my favourite website to book accommodation and find really good deals. As I use it so frequently, I often get discounts and therefore, save a lot of money overall which helped massively with booking accommodation for this trip. Booking.com is great in general as it's easy to filter through and see exactly where accommodation is in conjunction with where you're going. 

Post Office Travel

Backpacking undoubtedly means lots of different currencies across the course of your trip and getting used to new exchange rates. I found Post Office Travel to be useful for all of my travels and it came in handy also for this backpacking trip. Although it didn't have all currencies on, it did have some and allowed me to load on money and take out when I pleased. This also helped as it meant I had another card with me.

Maps.Me

This is a genius app we found before the trip and I'm thankful we both downloaded it because the app was incredibly useful. Maps.Me allows you to download maps from any destination all over the world and it provides information on restaurants, cafes, tourist sites and more. The maps also have random commentary on plenty of places where people have added something to the map. It's a collaborative thing, meaning any user can add a location to the map. That's what makes the maps incredibly accurate and useful.

Rome2Rio

When it comes to planning routes or transport, Rome2Rio is useful as it shares the possible ways to get from location to location. For example, you can fly, take a train or bus and it'll list out the cheapest and fastest routes.

12Go

To book transport, this app is the go-to. 12Go provides options for bus, train, boat, taxis and flights, to help you make the best decision for you. I booked plenty of transport via this app as it was incredibly cheap, easy to use and effective.

Easybook

When I couldn't find transport on 12Go, another app which was incredibly useful was Easybook. I particularly found this helpful for booking buses in Malaysia as there were plenty of options. Although, with Easybook, it's not always clear on the location point of where you need to catch a bus.

Klook

I always say when backpacking Southeast Asia, it's better to book excursions and tours whilst you're there because it's usually cheaper and more convenient. However, for the tours or sometimes transport I didn't book in person, I found Klook to work wonders in finding amazing and inexpensive tours. Every tour we did here was brilliant with clear communication and honest reviews, making it easy to pick the right things for us.

Grab

Taxis are an inevitable part of getting around when backpacking, especially when you're transporting your backpack. To keep things cheap, Grab is handy to have as often taxis are reasonable and the experience is great. If I wasn't using a tuk-tuk, I'd always go on Grab! Although be aware, Grab isn't available in every region across Southeast Asia.

FlexiroamX

It's no myth that data is expensive abroad, and instead of buying a sim card at every destination, download Flexiroam. This app allows you to buy sim cards for data purposes worldwide and has an easy-to-use guide on how to install them. They have data plans ranging in the amount of data and length of time, from a couple of days to a month long. 

Google Translate

Unless you're a language queen, being able to speak multiple languages across Southeast Asia is tricky and why Google Translate can do wonders. If you download the languages you like, you can also use it without the Internet. The app can be helpful when you need to translate the menu or talk to a local who doesn't speak English.

Books/podcasts

Entertainment is key when you're travelling around on buses, boats, trains and planes. As you can't bring lots of books with you, downloading the book app and podcast app allows you to read lots of books and listen to many podcasts.

I hope you found this post helpful. What other apps would you recommend?

Thank you for reading <3