The Best Travel App Everyone Should Have: Citymapper

Travel and technology go hand-in-hand. You already know about my favorite cell phone carrier, T-Mobile, and you know that I’m a big fan of carrying a portable charger, especially when I’m alone. But I can’t resist singing the praises of what I think is the very best travel app to use during my trips — Citymapper. No matter where I am in the world, if Citymapper is available, it’s my go-to when it comes to navigation.

I first came across Citymapper shortly before I studied abroad in London, back in 2013. One day in the semester prior, I was bored while sitting at the front desk of the fitness center where I worked. With my brand-new iPhone 4, I decided to check out the App Store in the hopes of finding something useful for my upcoming trip. I typed “London” into the search bar.

After downloading the official London Underground map, I installed five or six more apps that looked interesting. But the only travel app I ever used while in London, though, was Citymapper. The app prides itself on being “The Ultimate Transport App,” and I have to agree. It’s better than Apple Maps and Google Maps (and yes, I will fight you on that).

With Citymapper, I became the designated navigator out of my group of friends in London. It was a tough burden to bear, but this app made it easy.

How Citymapper Works

You give Citymapper access to your location, and then you select the city you want to view. It will make suggestions based on your location, but you can choose any of its supported cities. So even though I was approximately 5,000 miles away in Springfield, Missouri, I was still able to select London. Next, it will ask you to enable notifications. I usually find notifications annoying, but I do allow them in this case. You’ll see why soon.

On the main screen, there is a visual representation of all transportation options available, and some saved places. Click on “Get Me Somewhere” to input your origin and destination. As I sat playing with the app for the first time, here’s what I put in:

Where are you coming from? Heathrow Airport Terminal 5
Where are you going? Regent’s University London

After clicking the green arrow, it gave me my travel options on the next screen.

The app suggests a variety of different ways for you to get between point A and B. You can walk, take a taxi, call an Uber, take the Tube or a bus, take the train, or a combination. For each option, it gives you an estimated amount of time and estimated cost. Click on each option for more details or to “choose” that method of transportation.

Depending on what you chose, this is where the alerts can come in handy. As you travel by metro or bus, it will notify you, “Get off at the next stop!”

A couple of other things I love: You can save directions for offline use. Remember how my iPhone 4 was useless when I wasn’t connected to WiFi? While I was still on WiFi, I could plan my trips (such as the trip from airport-school from above) and save them to my phone. Then, even when I was deeeeeeep in the bowels of the city (Piccadilly line), I could access these directions.

You can even save your favorite places so you don’t have to search every time. Also, when you’re walking, the app shows you which direction you’re facing. That’s so much more useful than you would ever expect it to be. And ALSO, it somehow seems to know every single bus/subway/train schedule in the city. It will even tell you where the best place to sit is. (I’m still not certain how they figured that out.)

Back when I first used this app in London, the only other available city was New York. In the 10+ years since then, the app has expanded and I’ve been able to use it in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Bilbao, Bordeaux, Boston, Brussels, Chicago, Dublin, Edinburgh, Florence, Los Angeles, Lyon, Madrid, Mexico City, New York City, Rome, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Petersburg, Toronto, Vancouver, Washington D.C… you get the picture. 🙂

I used to list out all the cities it has available, but they’re constantly adding more, so I can’t keep up. 😂

Citymapper lets its users vote for the next city. I’d vote for Bangkok — what about you?

Download it here: iPhone / Android

 

Have you ever used Citymapper? What do you think is the best travel app? Let me know in the comments!

-Cathy

Originally Published on February 2, 2018.