4 Free Apps That Can Save You Money While Traveling

Traveling can quickly become an expensive hobby if you aren't careful with your finances. Whether you're just starting to travel more or want to get more efficient with your travel expenditure, tons of mobile apps can help you better plan your trip, score cheap tickets, and save you money on currency conversions. Most of these apps are free to use, unless you choose to pay for a service or ticket.

We handpicked four of the best free-to-use apps that can help you score deals or select cheaper options when you plan your trip or are already there. We've compiled our recommendations after examining user reviews from real travelers on forums and Reddit, and we've also consulted expert reviews to refine our selection. Before packing your useful travel gadgets, download these apps on your phone.

Skyscanner is a widely recommended app for finding cheap airline tickets on Android and iOS. Unlike typical flight ticket booking apps, it's a metasearch engine that shows you the best airfare deals by looking through multiple airline websites and ticket providers. This not only saves you money but also saves you the trouble of manually searching through multiple apps and websites. You also get plenty of filtering options while searching for flight tickets, including whether you want direct flights, flights belonging to a specific alliance, and the time of departure. More importantly, you don't pay Skyscanner anything, and all your bookings are done through the airline or ticketing platform you choose.

One interesting feature of the app is its Everywhere feature, which comes in handy when you don't have a specific destination in mind and just want to travel. It ranks every country in the world by the cheapest flight price from your home airport. So, if you are in New York City, it will list different countries based on the flight prices from NYC. You can also use Skyscanner to see price data for the whole month or get information about the cheapest month for travel to your destination. The app can also notify you of any fare changes if you set up alerts. Besides flights, Skyscanner can help you find car rentals and hotels at your destination.

While Skyscanner is great for getting flight deals, Rome2Rio is a great Google Maps alternative that can help you organize the rest of your travel on the cheap. Rather than showing you only a car or public transport route, it checks all available transport modes, including trains, buses, taxis, ferries, and ride-sharing, to show the complete route between two locations using a single travel mode, if available, or a combination of them. More importantly, you can easily compare the various available transport options to decide whether you want to save time or money. For example, you can choose an overnight bus over a quick flight to save a bit of money, or choose a ride share from BlaBlaCar for a middle ground.

It has a massive global database, including over 200 countries. Like Skyscanner, Rome2Rio doesn't book the tickets itself, and instead gives you the option to choose a partner or local operator. It's also free to use for route searches, available on both Android and iOS, and works in multiple languages, including English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese.

From the creators of NordVPN, Saily has quickly emerged as a cheap way to get eSIMs for your travel destinations. So, if you don't want to pay a premium while picking up a SIM at your destination airport or risk buying a chip that may not work, Saily can help. It has low rates and is widely recommended for short trips. With a few taps in the app, your eSIM is ready to use upon landing. Your eSIM is automatically activated when it connects to a local cell tower in your destination city.

One major highlight of Saily is its built-in ad blocker, which works on the DNS level and stops ads from reaching your phone. This not only makes your internet experience better but also reduces the amount of data you consume. Moreover, as a part of Saily, you also get the option to choose a virtual location to access data or websites that might not be accessible in your actual location. 

Saily only works for data usage, so you won't get a local number to make or receive traditional calls. Its mobile data plans vary in price and data cap depending on the country or region you'll use them in, usually ranging from 1GB to 20GB. Its unlimited Ultra plan is expensive, so you will be better served by getting a local SIM card if you want significantly more data. You can download Saily on Android and iOS.

One of the ways many of us end up spending a significant chunk of change is in currency conversions and ATM fees while traveling. Revolut can help in this regard. It's a fintech firm that offers accounts with several benefits, such as the ability to hold or exchange money in over 30 different currencies. When you convert between currencies, you get excellent exchange rates, which are significantly better than what you will get at an airport kiosk or even at currency exchange shops in the city. Moreover, when you use the Revolut card at a merchant, it exchanges your money to local currency without any markups or poor exchange rates.

Even with its free plan, you pay no fees when withdrawing money from in-network Revolut ATMs worldwide, though some plans may limit how much you can withdraw. Since ATMs may charge their own fees, the app's ATM Locator helps you find surcharge-free machines. Other Revolut features include the ability to create disposable virtual cards, an instant freeze function, and rewards through its RevPoints system.

Revolut charges a 1% fee on currency conversions on weekends (starting Friday evening ET), so it's recommended that you convert what you need beforehand to avoid these fees. Also, the free Standard plan has a $1,000 monthly limit on currency exchange; while fine for many, heavy travelers might find this restrictive. However, optional Premium accounts offer higher limits and additional benefits like travel insurance. The Revolut app is available on Android and iOS.

Traveling can be expensive, particularly when traveling internationally without the right tools. While you can use ChatGPT as a travel companion for trip ideas and planning, it is no alternative to dedicated apps designed to help you save money. So while selecting these free apps to save money while traveling, we consulted travel forums and Reddit conversations involving actual travelers to find apps that really work. We also considered user reviews posted on app stores and opinions of experts to refine our recommendations. All the apps we recommend are widely praised and have garnered an average rating of 4.4 or more out of 5 on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.