The Best Travel App Out There

While I was in Europe the past two weeks I came across the absolute best travel app out there. I was on the hunt for an app that would provide me with an offline map of Paris. Coletta and I were going to be going all over Paris and I wanted to be able to help us find our way around without the use of the oh-so-scarce wifi. That is when I stumbled across the Ulmon Paris App.

After a little bit of research, I learned that the Ulmon app is not just for Paris, but in fact there is a separate app for just about every major city out there! I loved the app so much I got the one for Amsterdam and Barcelona as well.

By now you are probably wondering, "What makes this app so special?" Well. To start with it has a very detailed offline map with GPS capabilities. If you turn on the location tracker it will automatically show where you are and which direction you are facing when you open the app. However, that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this app!

It offers suggestions of most popular attractions in that particular city. It also divides up the popular places by category - ratings, top places, hotels, food, nightlife, entertainment & arts, transportation, shops... the list goes on and on. Not only does it just tell you what the attraction is, but it provides a link to wikipedia (again offline) that tells you the history of the attraction. You can also just search for a street, place or area and it will pull up the spot on the map for you.

You can also choose to pin locations that you want to visit. You even have the option to color code your pins. For example, Coletta and I pinned our hotel as blue, the places we wanted to visit green - which we changed to purple after we saw them, and yellow for the places we were undecided about. You can also take a picture of the location when you're there and it gets added to your pin!

The other nice thing is that it shows the subway/ public transportation stops of the area. The app can pull up a list of attractions/ sites that are near you and it typically included a nearby subway stop. This aspect of the app was invaluable in Paris, but in Amsterdam I pretty much just walked everywhere because it is a smaller city.

Oh and did I mention that this app is free??? I believe that if you purchase more than 5 cities it may start to cost but I couldn't find details on that yet... Regardless, this app is totally worth it!

You may be wondering if there were any drawbacks to the app? The only thing I wish the app did include would be the price of attractions.

Overall, I recommend this app whole-heartedly. I couldn't believe how much I used it in both Paris and Amsterdam. This is a must have for all travelers headed to a major city!

Malena

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