World Race Like A Boss: 11 Apps For the Race
Here are 11 different apps or programs that I highly encourage you to download if you are brining a smart phone, iOS device and/or a laptop of some sort. If you think that you will never be bored on the race, you are wrong. There are long travel days, days off of ministry and hours where you have nothing better to do. Sometimes there are days that you need some sort of escape from the team. All you need with these is earbuds and a device.
1. TunnelBear – TunnelBear helps you to be able to watch your favorite shows and movies in countries that it is blocked (which is most of them). It also blocks websites and people from tracking what you are looking up and downloading.
Cost: $4.99/month or $49.99/year
Website: https://www.tunnelbear.com
2. Spotify – Unless you have Spotify Premium, you may not be able to listen to your music in other countries. Spotify Premium is worth the cost of $9.99 because you can download almost every song on the planet to listen to offline. Whenever you get wifi you can choose which songs you want to download. Think of how much you will save by not having to buy every new song or album off of iTunes. That extra money you can spent on the good stuff: chocolate, soda, candy, Starbucks, chips and more.
Cost: $9.99/month
3. Evernote – Evernote syncs to practically any device you have on you. Take notes, write in your journal, store memories and access them on any device you have evernote downloaded on. Purchasing Premium helps you to have access to notes offline as well as gives you more than enough upload storage. I used this almost every day.
Cost: $5/month
Website: http://evernote.com
4. Kindle – Kindle is the best thing for travelers since free in-flight movies. Kindle reduces the amount of physical books you have to carry as well as gives you access to your whole library. With Kindle you can still highlight favorite passages and take notes without marking up the actual book. You can read without having a light and now you can subscribe to Kindle Unlimited that lets you read and listen to up to 10 free books at a time. It’s like Spotify for books.
Cost: Free (Kindle Unlimited is $10 a month)
5. Pocket – Pocket is like a magazine that you create. Whenever you find an interesting article or a page too lengthy to read in the moment, simple send the website link to Pocket and it will create a visually appealing way to read saved articles later. This is great for long travel days and it is free!
Cost: Free
Website: http://getpocket.com
6. Dropbox – Dropbox is an amazing resource for uploading videos, documents, and any other files. You get a certain amount of storage space free, but upgrading to premium will make sure your videos are safe in the cloud. External hard drives may get full or crash, it is always smart to have a backup of your memories.
Cost: Free (Premium: $100/year)
Website: https://www.dropbox.com/
7. Flickr: Flickr is another great resource for uploading photos and videos. Even better, you get 2 TB of space for free. I used Flickr for only photos.
Cost: Free
Website: https://www.flickr.com
8. Footprint – Where I’ve Been – This is an app that will allow you to save everywhere you’ve been on a world map. It is neat to be able to see where all your travels have taken you. It marks the time, country, city and street that you checked in at. You can even check in without internet using your iPhone’s GPS. Also, your check-ins are only seen by you.
Cost: $2.99 (Premium $2.99)
Website: http://footprintwhereivebeen.com
9. Zoom – Zoom is Facetime or Skype but with the ability to Skype with 10 people at once. It is Free for about 30 minutes and then you have to pay to keep the video Skype going or you can just start a new one again for free. Zoom often was more clear and had a better connection at times than FaceTime or Skype. It was also neat to be able to talk with multiple family members at once.
Cost: Free (Premium: $9.99/month)
Website: https://www.zoom.us
10. Netflix/Amazon Instant Video/Hulu – I used both Amazon and Netflix many times throughout the year. It could only use it when I had internet, but it was nice to have when I wanted to watch shows and movies I had missed. You do need TunnelBear to use any of these websites outside of the US.
Cost: Netflix $7.99 / Amazon: Free with Prime / Hulu: Free but limited to recent episodes
11. Foursquare/TripAdvisor – Both Foursquare and TripAdvisor I used in every country to find good places to eat, sleep and have fun. There are so many times that they both helped us find restaurants that served foods that we craved (American, Asian, Mexican). Also, when we had a day to spare for fun we often used TripAdvisor to see what attractions were worthy of checking out and tips from other people.
Cost: Free
Honorable Mentions:
1. iCloud – I did not use iCloud on the race, but if you normally use it then it will also be a very valuable resource for storing files, photos and videos. However, your 5 GB of space will run out quick and cause you to purchase bigger storage packages. Because iCloud can only be used on iOS devices, I did not use it. I wanted to access files on any device and it not have to be an Apple produce. Evernote, Dropbox and Flickr are all available on many different devices and not just Apple.
Cost: 5 GB Free and then various costs for upgrades
2. Day One – Day One is an app that is also a journal and travel log. Each day write a memory, upload your favorite photos of the day and check-in where you were at. It is free, has many features and looks awesome on the iPad and iPhones.
Cost: Free on iPhone and iPad / $9.99 on Mac
Website: http://dayoneapp.com
3. Viber, WhatsApp, Kik – These Apps help for communicating back at home with family and friends. You can text or call through these devices and can pay for upgrades and other features. I used Viber to text with my family and I found that Viber downloaded images and texts faster than Messages on iPhone did. I did not use WhatsApp or Kik, but I found that many on my squad did. Also, many people I met in other countries used WhatsApp as a way to stay connected with us. WhatsApp is a good alternative to giving people your Facebook name.
Cost: Free (For calling minutes you will have to pay for different plans)
4. Pinger – This app saved my butt a few times when my credit cards were put on hold. Sometimes you need to quickly get ahold of the bank or someone without having to pay crazy amounts for an international phone plan. Pinger works excellent over wi-fi and you can earn a ton of free calling minutes by watching ads for games. I earned 15 minutes or more a day of calling time by watching quick 30 second videos in the app. Skype also can do the same thing, but you sometimes have to pay for minutes to call out and Skype can have a rough connection depending on internet speed. Pinger worked will no matter how bad the internet was.
Cost: Free or buy extra call minutes for cheap
Website: http://www.pinger.com/content/home.html
There are tons of other cool apps and websites to use. What are some of your favorites?
