Travel Apps on my Phone: Delete or Keep? Parte trois…

image via spottedbylocals.com

As I’ve mentioned, I’m not the best ever with technology, but even I like to check out a few apps that might save me data-charges while on the road. Here’s one I downloaded right before my trip to Lisbon (May/June of this year):

Spotted by Locals: Traveling “like a local” is a big, buzzy idea nowadays and whether that’s your goal or not, it’s hard to avoid in contemporary travel writing. In that spirit the website and apps “Spotted by Locals” were born. I bought the Lisbon and Istanbul mobile guides for my recent trip. The app itself is free, then the guides are bought in-app for $3.99 each (prices may vary, but that was what I paid for each guide). While some of the suggestions were obvious (ie, a local suggested that Hagia Sofia was worth a visit in Istanbul. Shocker!), there were more nuance and detail to the suggestions than found in most guidebooks and the map interface worked really well and didn’t use any data. During the course of my two-week trip both guides also updated at least twice, meaning the info was as current as possible– much better for opening/closing times and admission prices than the two printed guides I had brought with me, which were one and two years old. Each guide is however only as good as the locals supplying it with information and I found the Istanbul one better than that for Lisbon.

Delete or Keep?: Keep and buy more, probably…

You can find Spotted by Locals here: http://www.spottedbylocals.com and on the usual app sources.

Have you used Spotted by Locals? What did you think about it? Were you surprised by the inanity of some of the suggestions?

 

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