In April we do a road trip thru the southern USA, what are useful apps to have on our phone?

19 comments

1. I really like Waze.

2. Waze, Yelp, Trip Advisor. I use Open Table for nicer restaurant reservations.

3. I don’t know how cellular coverage for wilderness areas are down there.

   Local to myself if we head into a national forest wilderness area we download Google maps so it can work without cellular signal.

4. Google maps, if you have an Android phone. Be sure to download maps for offline use, because there are areas with crappy reception. Big areas.

5. South east or south west?

6. GasBuddy

7. Gas Buddy and Apple Maps

8. Google Maps.

   Waze and Apple Maps are good, I use all three, but Google Maps is the only one that will let you download the maps for an area for offline use. Which if you get yourself lost in an area with no cell reception could be a life saver. This is more of a problem in the more sparsely populated west half of the country but I expect there are still pockets out east.

9. Make sure you have a reliable weather app. Conditions vary greatly within such a large area. Spring is also prime time for tornadoes. I would recommend Weather Channel app.

10. A less popular app that I like to have is MAPS.ME, it is a bare-bones navigation app that lets you download entire regions of a country. I use it when traveling outside the US because I don’t need an international data plan.

11. A good weather app. I’m still undecided since Apple killed DarkSky. Mostly I use WeatherUnderground, but that’s habit. AccuWeather seems to be highly rated for accuracy, but the UI sucks.

    These aren’t apps, but:

    Bring a USB-A cable. Many rental cars will have CarPlay/Android Auto, but you’ll need a cable, and they probably won’t have a USB-C port.

    Make sure you have your tunes/podcasts/audiobooks downloaded. You don’t want to burn data for streaming, plus there can be occasional spots of poor signal.

12. spotify with a long playlist downloaded

13. All Trails

14. Chick-fil-A app

15. Since you said Texas, I’ll plug Citymapper. It will come in handy for Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin (also Atlanta if you go through there) . Best all-round nav app I’ve found for cities, whether you’re driving, walking, or taking public transit.

16. There’s a good weather alert app called Storm Shield, which you can set to give an alarm in case of various severe weather. I have mine just set for tornadoes, but there’s other options. Another one is iExit, which apparently took the place of Road Ahead. It tells what services are available at upcoming exits.

17. Google maps like others said. I also like GypSy maps which is basically guided tours which you can do in your car as your drive. It’s a small fee per tour and before your road trip you can download it and make sure the GPS on your phone is on.

    I used it recently when I drove the Icefields Parkway in the Canadian Rockies and it was fantastic.

18. google maps, also the sunpass or epass apps if you are driving in Florida. Get the sticker so you dont pay whatever the rental car company charges.

19. When I drove a truck, I used Allstays Truck Stops & Travel Plazas. It’s a pretty good app to see where the big nice travel plazas are, which I recommend pit stopping at when driving on the interstates