It comes as no surprise that travel is now a battleground for getting apps onto your phone (the battle predominently being that someone wants me to put their 2.5 star rated app on my phone and I almost certainly don’t want it). The trip couldn’t have happened without Google Maps and Google Translate but here are a bunch of apps that were necessary additional installs (some questionably) from the 🇬🇧 🇧🇪 🇩🇪 🇩🇰 🇸🇪 🇫🇮 🇳🇴 trip (ranked best to worst):

  1. Voi - already had it for the Edinburgh bikes and it worked a treat and didn’t fuss about me being off home-turf. I group-rode e-scooters with M. in Helsinki (somewhat scary, also fun) and solo rode in Turku (scarier, so many roadworks!).

  2. WikiVoyage - an app installed by choice as it’s a really nice way to get info on locations offline. Another reason to keep contributing to, and donating to, Wikipedia.

  3. Donkey republic - an app I’d happily have on my phone if Edinburgh had DR bikes. Booked a bike in Turku with no effort at all. And the bikes don’t need specific parking terminals, just general parking areas, so that’s a logistical triumph too. And even though you need to lay down a deposit (this this the app company is essentially able to generate significant working capital) they refunded mine within a few minutes of requesting once we’d left town. I wish Voi would have the ride offers section - shuttling bikes the against the main flow of traffic in exchange for free rides seems like a good way to get bikes back to where they’re needed. 4.7km in 42 mins for €2. One button account deletion request too.

  4. VR Matkalla - live train updates (“On Track”) for a route you’re on is great, and getting info on the train’s food provision whilst on board is also awesome.

  5. 24 Laundromat / 24 Pesula - do I object to having to app just to turn on a washing machine? Yes. Did it work? Also yes.

  6. Reuter - Oslos transport app. Sub three minutes from realising we needed it to having a bus ticket (not as easy as “tap on” with your bank card the same as literally everywhere else we’d been in Scandinavia given I’m from Scotland I’ll take the win).

  7. SL - trains app for Sweden. Installed to confirm that the connection between Kapellskar ferry terminal and Stockholm city truly didn’t run on Sundays. It truly didn’t. Not the app’s fault.

  8. Matkat - regional bus app. It generally would have been better if bus stops had any signage or indication as to which buses stopped at the stop or when. Not the app’s fault. Also, the app’s routing sucks - optimised to show routes that take you closer to your destination but in the distant future rather than near-ish to where you want to go in the now. (I’d rather walk 10 mins today than get picked up right where I am in 5 days time!). This is very much the app’s fault!

  9. Oslo City Bike - slightly faffy to understand how to get set up, completely bs’d me about availability of parking slots, and then was phone-restartingly glitchy stressful trying to park the bike, but technically I did use it to hire a bike and park a bike. They could learn from Voi.

  10. Interrail Rail Planner - the app can be judged by the blazingly frustrating downward arrow “V” that lets you click a train to see where it stops… it truly sucks: the click area is all squiffy and 9 times out of 10 clicking it the app jumps you to the home page rather than showing you the train’s stops. (Also it doesn’t show stops before your departure station or stops after your arrival station which, for a train app, is criminal). The app will be massively improved if ever rail carriers can align either onto one booking engine or an API standard; as it is, the Rail Planner gives an illusion of interoperability that just isn’t there. Also, groups travelling together don’t share “trips” and the website and app don’t share logins. A veneer of an app.

  11. Uber - installed again as a precaution during a very heavy thunderstorm that almost wrote off a nice walk… it was okay in the end, Uber wasn’t needed and we saw some Reindeer.

  12. Booking.com - whatever. In a world with Big Pharma, Big Oil, etc. I fear booking.com is now Big Booking as it’s hard to book some accommodation anywhere else and even when it is possible the “security” of b.com seems better. But my word are they ram sponsored listings at you.

  13. Digital Key - oh this app ☹. Told to install as “essential”, harvested much data, wasn’t essential, tested and it didn’t work anyway.