Before you go · step 5
18 apps that between them handle the bus to the next town, the bed at the end of it, the menu you cannot read and the money you pay with. 17 of them are free. Tick off what you already have and the page remembers where you got to.
Bangkok, Thailand
If you only install a handful, make it these. They will get you through Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and the Philippines: the bus to the next town, the bed at the end of it, and the menu you cannot read.
12Go Asia Buses, trains and ferries across Asia 
Grab Taxis and food, without the haggling 
Hostelworld Hostels, reviewed by the people who slept in them 
Google Maps Works offline too, if you download it first 
Wise Spending and withdrawing at the real rate 
Google Translate Read menus with your camera Grouped by what you open them for. Anything that does more than one job turns up under more than one button. Tick off what you already have: your browser remembers it, so you can pick this up again tomorrow.
0 of 18 installed
Buses, trains and ferries across Asia
If you are moving around Southeast Asia, this one earns its place on the home screen. Compare and book trains, buses, ferries, transfers and domestic flights, and keep the tickets in the app instead of buried in your inbox.
Taxis and food, without the haggling
The default ride and delivery app across most of Southeast Asia. You see the price before you get in, so there is nothing to negotiate and no argument at the other end.
Often a little cheaper than Grab
In several countries Bolt undercuts everyone else. Opening both and comparing the fare takes ten seconds, and those ten seconds regularly pay for lunch.
Flights, beds and tickets in one app
The all rounder for Asia. Flights, hostels and hotels, and tickets for attractions and day trips, all landing in the same place. Handy when your route changes every few days, which it will.
The fastest way to see what a flight costs
Good for finding the flight out, better still for deciding where to go next. Put everywhere in the destination box, set a price alert on the date you have in mind, and let it tell you where you can afford to go.
Hostels, reviewed by the people who slept in them
The biggest hostel app in Asia, with reviews from travellers rather than hotel guests. The chat gets you talking to your dorm before you even arrive, which is worth a lot if you are travelling on your own.
The widest choice, usually free to cancel
Outside the hostels Booking normally has the most rooms, and plenty of them cancel for free. You can sort a flight, a car, an airport transfer and attraction tickets there too. Save the booking offline before you get on a night bus.
Regularly the lowest price in Asia
Agoda is big in Southeast Asia and often has rooms and rates that do not show up anywhere else, especially in Thailand and Vietnam. Putting it next to Booking almost always pays for itself.
Works offline too, if you download it first
The one you open every single day. Download the map of your first stop before you go and you can navigate from the airport with no sim card at all. Star your hostel straight away, so you can still find it after a fourteen hour travel day.
For the paths Google does not know
Built by the people who made Maps.me, open source, no ads and no subscription. Better than Google on hiking trails, dirt tracks and the last kilometre to a waterfall, and every map you download stays yours.
Wind, rain and swell, days ahead
If you are diving, surfing, hiking or getting on a boat, this is the weather app that tells you something you can actually use. Full forecasts, wind, rain and wave height.
Spending and withdrawing at the real rate
One of the most useful apps a traveller can carry. Hold several currencies at once, pay in local money at the actual exchange rate, and watch what you are spending while you spend it.
Your second card, for when the first gets refused
Works much like Wise and tracks your spending by country and by category. Carry two: cash machines in Asia do turn cards down, and standing outside one with your only card is not a good evening.
Baht, dong and kip converted in one tap
Is 1,200 baht a lot? What about 850,000 dong? Xe answers instantly and keeps the last rate it saw, so it still works at a night market with no signal.
Who paid for what, without the argument
Travelling together, or splitting a tuk tuk with the rest of the dorm? Put every expense in as it happens and at the end it works out exactly who owes who what.
Read menus with your camera
With the offline language packs downloaded you can hold a conversation, read a menu and translate a sign with no internet at all. Point the camera at a menu and watch it rearrange itself into something you can order from.
Safe on your hostel's wifi
A VPN encrypts what you send over the public networks you end up living on out here: hostels, cafes, airports. We use NordVPN because it works well in Asia and runs on several devices at once. It also gets you back into services from home that block foreign connections, which matters more than it sounds when your bank wants to verify something.
Your route, tracked without doing anything
Polarsteps draws your route in the background and puts your photos on the map, offline as well. The people at home can follow along, and at the end you can have the whole thing printed as a book.
Everything in this category is already on your phone. Turn off the tick box above to see them again.
Install everything at home. Airports, hostels and long travel days all have the kind of connection that turns a 200 MB download into an hour of your life. Do it on your own wifi and you land ready to go.
If you install six, make them these: Google Maps to get around, Google Translate for menus and conversations, Grab for taxis, 12Go for buses, trains and ferries, Hostelworld for a bed and Wise to pay for all of it. That combination gets you through Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and the Philippines. The rest of this page makes it easier or cheaper, not possible.
Some of them, if you set them up first. Google Maps and Organic Maps work offline once the map is downloaded, Google Translate once the language pack is, and Xe remembers the last rate it saw. Booking anything, calling a taxi and checking the weather all need a connection, so sort an eSIM or a local sim card.
At home, on your own wifi. Some of them want to text a code to your own number the first time you log in, and that is a great deal more annoying once you are already standing in Bangkok. Downloads over hostel wifi are also slower than you would like them to be.
It changes by city and by time of day. Grab is the default across most of Southeast Asia and has drivers almost everywhere; Bolt covers fewer countries but regularly charges less where it does. Open both, compare the fare you are shown up front, pick one. Ten seconds.
Need is a strong word, sensible is the right one. You spend months on public wifi in hostels, cafes and airports, networks you know nothing about. A VPN encrypts your traffic across them. It also gets you back into banking and streaming from home that block foreign connections, which is more useful than it sounds the day your bank wants to verify something.
Almost none of them. Only the VPN runs on a subscription. Wise charges once for the physical card, and Windy and Polarsteps both sell extras you can happily ignore. The free version of each of them is the one we use ourselves.
With these on your phone you can move, sleep, eat and pay anywhere on the route. That leaves your visa, your jabs, your insurance and your onward ticket, and every one of those has a page of its own.