Personally, I limit the number of apps on my iPhone home screen. The goal is to declutter while keeping only the apps I need and use often. I eliminated some of the frivolous apps: music, since one can get music on YouTube. NYC311is gone since, if it is a crisis, I already know, and if it is a complaint, 311 responds by text. Remaining are a few of the easy travel applications: airline used, Rome2Rio, Bloomberg Connects, Uber, Accor, GetyourGuide, Viator, Mobile Passport Control, and Priority Pass. All the apps sold online seem to do what a pen and paper can or are too detailed for a normal seasoned traveler.  Fuggetabout those.

The following simple apps cover pretty much every travel situation. Let’s start with my least used ones: Priority Pass: this comes free with expensive Platinum-type credit cards and enables entry to airport lounges. Some Priority Pass memberships now charge a fee per visit: $35. Some airports with limited lounges or busy lounges will be full to capacity before you remember to book on Priority Pass. My experience is so varied it is hard to review this app. In some lounges, you get limited cold food; in Italy we got cookies, rosemary taralli, and chips. Reviewers state the best Priority Pass lounges are overseas and/or with Turkish Airlines in US Airports.

Mobile Passport Control, this is an app to partially complete before your trip. You finalize it a limited number of hours before you land in a US Airport. It enables you to use a quicker immigration line. I have TSA, again from a credit card, so do not use the MPC app. However, the word is we are moving to mobile only and, away from TSA; wait and see. For my last entry 2 weeks ago, US Customs at JFK tested a new image recognition system. You marched past an overhead camera and, voila, you were in. No scanning of your passport or horrid computer photo. It felt distinctly like a cattle drive.

Accor is for Sofitel Hotels which I like: Scribe in Paris, Sofitel in LA and Amsterdam and in some airports etc. Air France has a strategic partnership with Accor. Breakfast is heavenly.  Besides enjoying the free drink and French atmosphere, one collects Accor points which become cash for your next stay. I saved $200 last month in Accor points.  Most major hotels have some kind of loyalty program. As you plan your trip, look up what you get for your ‘loyalty’. Probably not refunds like Accor but some goodie or upgrade which might be useful.

The tour apps I like are Viator and GetyourGuide. I used Viator in Mexico City for a splendid tour of Coyoacan, Food Tastings and the Frida Kahlo Museum. Here is that link: https://www.eltaco.club/  It was a fun preliminary Mexico City day prior to going with the group to Ixtapan Resort.   I used GetyourGuide for a few tours/events with my teen grand daughter: a treat, a macaron hands-on lesson in Paris, and a fashion show at Galeries Lafayettes. We also enjoyed a Jewish tour of Amsterdam. She thought 4 hours might be much yet we both stayed to the end at the Holocaust Memorial. I found out later that my college roommate’s grandparents and family were listed on that memorial. Oddly, we had never talked about the war.  Here is the tour guide’s email: ask for Naomi Koopmans as your guide. info@amsterdamtoursbyexperts.com

I used Viator for a tour of WW2 Resistance in Paris. Not great, and sadly most of it was a lecture. Not a walk with sites.  If you look at my 3 star review, which I thought was generous, the guide responded with vitriol: and a furious, angry personal attack. He slammed others more briefly, who wrote similar reviews; he knew I was a tour operator and I got the whipping. I won’t give you the link but, if interested, you’ll find it easily on Viator.  Ps I always read the worst reviews first.

Bloomberg Connects is a free app that lists important sites in many cities. It is a must for trip preparation. I live part time in London and learned about new places and  sites from Bloomberg.  Here are a few of the NY unusual sites: NY Aids Memorial, New York City Fire Museum,Artists in Residence in Governors Island, NY Hall of Science. There are many many more you probably did not know.

Getting around: Uber is excellent as well as the map defining site, Rome2Rio which spells out exactly how to get from A to B and costs: air, train, bus, taxi, walk….. Uber works in other countries; beware there is a currency exchange charge and I find, in London, always a wait charge of a few Pounds. Rome2Rio is useful if you want to save and use public transportation not taxis. Or walk part of the way then take a bus….increasingly buses take credit cards overseas.

That is the sum total of all travel apps that have guided me around the world. Forgot to add Delta which is the airline that whisks our group a few times a year to Ixtapan Spa and Fitness Resort outside of Mexico City. Becoming familiar with your airline app helps with seating, special upgrades and such.

Now it time to clean out my closets. Being a veteran tour operator and guide will not help in those dark spaces.