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Where are all the travel guide apps for Android?

by Meg Nesterov (RSS feed) on Mar 25th 2011 at 11:00AM

Nearly two years ago, I bought my first smartphone: the T-Mobile Android MyTouch*. I'm only occasionally jealous of my iPhone-carrying friends, as I find few travel guide apps for Android. Even after a move to Istanbul, I still use and rely upon it daily; Android's interface is fast and easy-to-use, and seamless use of Google applications like Gmail and Google Maps is part of the reason I bought it in the first place. Living in a foreign country means English-language books and magazines are expensive and hard-to-find, and like many travelers, I don't want to carry bulky books around when I'm on the road. This leaves a perfect opportunity for mobile developers to provide real travel guide content and not just travel-booking apps, especially apps produced by reliable media sources with professional editorial. These days, every guidebook and travel magazine publisher is coming out with apps for the iPhone and now iPad, supplying users with content and directions on the go, but there are hardly any for Android.

So what's available for mobile travelers from the top travel book and print sources? Better hope you're running Apple OS...

Guidebooks:

Fodor's: Happy 75th Birthday Mr. Fodor, but we wish you had more than just five city guides for purchase (in London, New York, Paris, Rome, and San Francisco) and only for Apple.
Frommer's: iPhone guides are available for ten major cities in the US, Europe and Asia, but nada for Android.
Lonely Planet: iPhone users are spoiled for choice: dozens of city guides, language phrasebooks, audio walking tours, and eBooks optimized for the iPad. Android users in 32 countries including the US are in luck: there's a free Trippy app to organize itinerary items, as well as 25 "augmented reality" Compass city guides and 14 phrasebooks. NOTE: This article originally mentioned that the Compass guides were unavailable in the Android Market store, but they should work for most US users. I happen to be in a country where paid apps are not available and not shown in the Market.
LUXE City Guides: 20 cheeky city guides work for a variety of mobile phones, including iPhone and Blackberry, but none are compatible with my Android. Bonus: the apps come with free regular updates and maps that the paper guides don't have.
Rick Steves: If you are headed to Europe, you can get audio guides for many big attractions and historic walks for iPhone, plus maps for the iPad. You can also download the audio files free for your computer, and props to Rick for mentioning that Android apps are at least in development.
Rough Guides: Here's a new one: the Rough Guides app works for many phones but NOT the iPhone OR Android! It's not as slick as some of the other guides (it's a Java app) and you will use data to use it on the road, but it provides lots of info for many cities in Europe. You can also find a Rough Guides photo app on iTunes to view pictures from around the world with Google Maps and captions from Rough Guides.
Time Out: City travelers and residents might want to look at the apps from Time Out for 5 European cities and Buenos Aires, with Manchester and New York on the way. More cities are available for free on iTunes, search for Time Out on iTunes to see what's available. iPhone only.
Wallpaper* City Guides: 10 of the design mag's 80 city guides are for sale for iPhone for Europe, Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles.

Print media:

Conde Nast Traveler: It makes sense for magazines to embrace the iPad, and CNT has free Apple apps specifically for Italy, cruises, and their annual Gold List of hotels and resorts. Blackberry users can download an etiquette guide, but Android users are snubbed.
National Geographic: As befitting any explorer, Nat Geo has a world atlas, national parks maps, and games featuring their amazing photography, all for iPhone. A special interactive edition of National Geographic Traveler is for sale on the iPad; you can also read it on your computer. Androids can download a quiz game and various wallpapers; and all mobile users can access a mobile-friendly version of their website at natgeomobile.com.
Outside: Adventure travelers can purchase and read full issues on the iPad, but no subscription option yet.
Travel + Leisure: The other big travel glossy also has an iPad app for special issues. Four issues have been released so far with one available now on iTunes (romantic getaways) but future editions will follow to be read on the app. Just in time for spring break and summer, they've also released a Travel + Leisure Family app with advice and articles specifically geared towards travel and families. The apps are both free but you'll need an iPad - these are designed for tablets, not phones. You can also read full issues of T+L and their foodie cousin Food & Wine on Barnes & Noble's NOOK Color ereader; you can save per issue if you subscribe to the e-reader version.
USA Today Travel: Most major newspapers have mobile readers for all types of phones, but USA Today is the only one with their own travel-specific app. AutoPilot combines an array of cool travel booking capabilities and information with articles and blog post from the newspaper. Only iPhone users can enjoy free.

Two of our favorite magazines, Budget Travel and Afar, have no mobile apps yet but great online communities to tap into their extensive knowledge.

All in all, other than Lonely Planet's Compass guides, a pretty weak showing for Android travelers. While iPhone has been around longer as a mobile platform that Android, they've lost the market share of users to the little green robot. As Android is available on a variety of phone manufacturers and providers, expect that number to continue to grow, along with the variety and depth of content for mobile and tablet users. Will the developers ever catch up or will travelers have to choose?

*Android has not endorsed this or paid me anything to write about them. But to show I'm not biased - Apple, feel free to send me a sample phone and I'll test out the apps!

Photo courtesy Flickr user closari. Special thanks to Sean O'Neill, who blogs on Budget Travel and the new BBC Travel blog.

Filed under: Gear, Blogs, Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania, South America, Antarctica, United States, Books, Internet Tools, Middle East, Central America, Caribbean

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

EagerTraveler Mar 25th 2011 5:06PM

Apple customers have more income?

Craig Mar 27th 2011 1:20PM

Forget travel apps -- where are all of the apps for Android? Sure, a lot of the major players have Android versions of their iPhone apps, but there simply aren't any good Android-exclusive apps. A lot of this has to do with how fragmented Android is -- it's very difficult to make an app that consistently works on the huge variety of devices and software versions that people have.

A Kindle is a good way to fill the gap if you can't get an iPhone. Sure, it doesn't have any location awareness, but it can pack a lot of guidebooks, saved Wikitravel and other articles, etc.

(BTW, Android isn't gaining marketshare from iPhone, they're gaining it from Blackberry.)

Meg Nesterov Mar 28th 2011 4:22AM

Good points Craig, too bad it doesn't help my app envy! I agree about the Kindle - it does fill a gap but misses the same functionality (and readability!) as a mobile app. I've purchased country/city chapters of Lonely Planet guides as PDFs when they weren't available as Kindle books but they don't read or zoom as well as the books designed for e-readers. These are still all nice problems to have and ones that "real" paper books have been solving for centuries!

Steve Mar 27th 2011 8:08PM

Hi Meg,

Lonely Planet currently offer about 25 city guides on Android:
https://market.android.com/search?q=lonely+planet+compass&c=apps

Love to hear your thoughts!

Best regards,
Steve

P.S. I'm a Product Manager at Lonely Planet

Meg Nesterov Mar 28th 2011 4:08AM

Thanks Steve for your comment. I am based in Turkey and unable to access the Compass apps on the Android Market. I've edited the post to reflect the availability for other users and will try to download a guide when I'm traveling in Singapore in a few weeks and give it a test drive!

Tom Apr 8th 2011 3:34PM

But where are the books on Provence or other smaller areas in high profile places like France? Are they coming? I would pay to get them on something like a Galaxy Tab if I could get 2 or 3 guides and some maps as well and really stop taking a couple of books and several maps when I travel around. It seems (independent of platform and publisher) that the travel industry haven't decided on the business model for this yet or have figured out it's a killer threat.
I want a app that allows me to search, mark, zoom based on the area, topic (sightseeing, eating, sleeping) and how I am traveling (car, train, etc). I assume this is a rapidly changing landscape and we'll know more in a year or so.

fastoy Jun 19th 2011 9:48AM

They sure don't get very good ratings!

Brian Mar 28th 2011 8:22PM

Sometimes I use an app called Geolover. It's seems that it doesn't have unique content. Instead it's using an extracted version of Wikipedia. For larger cities it works pretty good.

Jack May 10th 2011 9:12AM

Also available for Android are the Passeport Gastronomique menu translators and phrase and pronunciation guides. They are Kindle and Nook books that run on Android (and iPad, iPhone and Blackberry) with the free helper apps (Kindle for Android, etc.) from Amazon and B&N. For France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Holland, and Sweden.
Another series from the same publisher, Travelight Books, is called Menus(e)! and includes only the menu translations at a lower cost.

They're available here:

Amazon http://amzn.to/ks3EcB

B&N http://bit.ly/ka0ocS