Great escape apps

Had enough of capital chaos and fancy a break? Then one of these ingenious travel apps might be your ticket out of town. Long gone are the days of lugging around dog-eared guides and phrasebooks, crumpled maps and creased postcards — just pack your smartphone instead. Been captured by a jungle tribe? Well, don’t worry, there’s an app for that too.

You will probably already have Google Maps, Skype, TripAdvisor and that weird Compass one. But here are our Top 10, some lesser-known but no less indispensable, apps you must download before departure.

Packing (£0.69, iPhone)

Never forget your sunglasses again with this companion for the organised and disorganised traveller alike. Start from a sample list or create your own — you can even group items into collapsible categories. Then just tick them off as you pack. You can save the original list for the next trip.

Speechless (£0.69, iPhone)

Don’t know your “poulet” from your “poisson”? This clever tool allows you to communicate wherever you are in the world by calling on an offline library of 500 pictures of every conceivable thing you might want. From food and drink to accommodation, transport and emergencies. So, no more need for multiple phrasebooks and dodgy pronunciation.

Photosynth (Free, IPHONE)

Take your phone photography to the next level by creating awesome panoramas. This app will stitch together multiple pictures, up to full 360-degree views, to fully capture your best moments — whether they are on a mountain-top or in a bustling market — and instantly share the results online.

Postagram (Free to download, then £1.49 to send each postcard, IPHONe, Android)

Revive the personal touch of a postcard, without the hassle of finding stamps and mailboxes. Simply take a picture with your phone then add a message and postal address. The next working day a real postcard will be mailed to your chosen recipient, including a neat little pop-out print of your photo.

Hipmunk (Free, iPhone, Android)

Most flight-finding tools present results in a confusing table of data. Hipmunk searches worldwide flights and visualises them in a timeline — with coloured bars to represent different airlines, legs and transfer duration. So, you can see immediately if a route requires an early start or painful stopovers. It will also help you decide where to stay, by showing your destination as a “heatmap” with hotspots to show areas with the most activities and restaurants.

FlightTrack Pro (£6.99, iPhone, Android, Blackberry)

If you’re a regular traveller, this is well worth its price tag. It gives you up-to-the-minute flight times, airport maps and gate and terminal numbers. It even tracks historical data to forecast delays. And the Pro version connects to SeatGuru to identify the best seats on your flight and TripIt to manage your itinerary.

WordLens (Free to download then £2.99 for each dictionary, iPhone)

Point your phone’s camera at any text, and watch the translation —this app uses augmented reality technology to show it as an image instead. For now it’s only available for English, French, Spanish and Italian. Accuracy is not perfect but it’s good enough to get around.

Pocket Universe (£1.49, iPhone)

Impress a date by pointing your phone at the night sky and letting this app identify planets and constellations. An HD version is now available and Android users can use the similar Google Sky Map.