If you love to travel, you will appreciate some of the new smartphone apps that have been designed especially for people like you. Planning an extended trip requires research into transportation, hotel reservations, entertainment tickets, weather events, and dining options. It’s much easier to plan a trip when you have apps to help you make all the arrangements.

TripIt

Store all your travel plans in a single location for convenience. Your complete itinerary, including lodging reservations, car rentals, and other events will be all together where you can consult them, change them, and share them with others. As you receive travel confirmations, TripIt can import your information into the app and add your trip plans to your calendar. This travel app is a great organizer and will save you time that would normally be spent trying to look up and coordinate all your travel information. Receive updates regarding flight plans, including delays and gate changes. TripIt offers a free version with basic services, or a paid version with many more benefits.

LiveTrekker

If you love sharing your travel adventures with family and friends, LiveTrekker is the perfect app for you. You can use interactive maps, voice recordings, video, and text entries to share your travels with others and to play back and enjoy later. A quick tap will activate the app, and it will start tracking your travel through your installed GPS system. Your trip will be displayed on a satellite map, which allows you to add photos, video, and text. With LiveTrekker, you can document your entire trip and enjoy it over and over.

Weather Live

One of the most important apps to have when planning your trip is Weather Live, created by Apalon Apps for Android. This weather app provides you with a full week of temperatures, wind speed and direction, precipitation amounts, weather radar, times for sunrise and sunset and other important weather information. This is especially helpful when choosing what clothing items to pack, and planning the time you need between travel connections. Weather Live gives you all the weather information you need for anyplace in the world. Don’t travel without this great app.

LoungeBuddy

If you fly often, you’ve experience long boring layovers every so often. It would be nice to have a place to relax during your wait and enjoy some snacks or drinks. Every airport has those secret lounges that are off-limits to budget travelers. If you have the right perks, the lounges may be open to you. LoungeBuddy can determine if you have the needed perks to get into one of these lounges. The app will need to know if you are flying first class or business, what credit cards you have, and if you are in the military. LoungeBuddy will let you if you have the qualifications needed to access lounges in over 900 airports around the world.

Before you plan your next trip, download these great apps to help you with planning, travel, and documenting your adventures.

Chelsea Metcalfe has travelled all over Europe and South America and is currently in planning mode for a trip to Australia next year. She writes a range of travel articles sharing some of her top tips.