Our top eight travel apps

We use a number of different apps when we are travelling to make help us on our way. Here our eight favourites.

Number eight: XE Currency Exchange is a money exchange app, which when it links to the internet gives you the latest up to the minute exchange rate for pretty much every currency across the globe. Its a massively useful app when

you're moving from country to country and need to know how much stuff costs!

Number seven: Podcasts allows you to easily download all your favourite podcasts on to your phone. It was a lifesaver for me on the long bus journeys we took in South America, giving me access to my favourite BBC Radio 4 programmes as well as keeping me entertained by the latest radiolabs and ted talks broadcasts.

Number six: While it's important to take some TripAdvisor reviews with a pinch of salt, it's usually obvious which reviews you should listen to and which you should ignore. Trip Advisor is a good place to start your research on what there is to do and see in a new town. Just don't take it as gospel.

Number five: HostelWorld reviews of hostels are only written by people who have stayed in that hostel, (unlike the Trip Advisor reviews). As such it's fairly reliable. The app is useful to research and book hostels on the move.

Number four: As an old school language graduate, I've always valued face to face language teaching over any kind of CD or app that claims to teach you a foreign language. 

However, after James raved about Duo Lingo to support his Spanish learning, I decided to try it out before we headed to Brazil to help me learn some basic Portuguese. And I was sold. This free app is incredibly effective at helping you get to grips with a new language and helping you practice a language you already know.. 

Number three: Air BnB is a website that allows individuals to rent out rooms or whole apartments or houses to travellers. We'd not discovered it before we headed in South America in 2014. It is a great site for finding unique accommodation and getting a local experience, as we found in Mendoza. And the app is very user friendly in allowing you to review and book properties.

Number two: Trail Wallet is an app that allows you to track your expenditure easily from your phone. 

It has different categories with which you can organise your spending in a way that makes most sense to you. You can also input spending into whatever currency you want to use. Its incredibly useful in tracking what you are spending and what you are spending it on.

Number one: Our favourite app, Pocket Earth is a map app that allows you to download relevant maps, so that you can use them offline when you're out and about. 

The accuracy of these maps impressed me immensely when we were in South America. They had much greater detail than googlemaps and helped us time and again when we were trying to work out where we were on long distance buses or in the back streets of small and large cities and towns.

These are our eight favourite travel apps that help make our travelling much easier. Are there any we have missed? What are your favourites?