I’m a Sagittarius so traveling, meeting fresh new people and exploring interesting new places I’ve never been to is my thing. As any world traveller could tell you, planning a journey normally involves doing extensive research about your favorite destination. But yours truly is a lousy planer: I’m the type of person who instead pulls an iPhone out of my pocket  to check out the top places to eat or stay, educate myself on a specific landmark, learn a little history and so forth.
But as much as I’m inclined to research places on the spot, roaming charges on my wireless bill are a painful reminder that pulling quick facts from the web, while abroad, is a big no-no. Having tried lots of similar apps that offer offline functionality, the iTravelGo app by developer Oleg Baranovskyi in my view is one of the more compelling city guides on the App Store.
Not only does it look nice, it sports a high-quality database of points of interests and is packed with useful information on the world’s 36 most famous cities. And as a bonus, there’s even a handy glossary in seventeen languages…
iTravelGo includes top attractions, restaurants and hotels, with each of the 36 cities containing twelve best attractions, fifteen most significant restaurants and 28 exclusive hotels. The curious types will love the History and Main Information section where they can learn interesting facts and dive deeper into the great history of each city.
The useful Booking.com integration means you can even book a hotel in-app. And to help find your way around the city, iTravelGo’s built-in city map with the most popular points of interests will come in handy.
Other features include transport description, Reasonable Tips section (quite handy!) for each city, Favorites and glossary in 17 languages: Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, Dutch, Turkish, Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, Hungarian, Japanese, Hindi, Chinese, Thai and Arabic..
If you’re planning on visiting New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Mexico, Montreal, Toronto, Rio de Janeiro, Marrakech, Dubai, Bangkok, Sydney, Delhi, Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore, Moscow, Kiev, Istanbul, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Stockholm, Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Rome, Venice, Florence, Paris, Munich, Berlin, London and Amsterdam anytime soon, I’d seriously recommend giving iTravelGo a try.
It could save you from roaming costs as it’s always ready to use, whether or not you have a network connection. The app is light, fast, fun to use, accessible in offline mode (that’s why it weighs in at 70 megabytes) and works as advertised.
And most importantly, there are no hidden subscriptions or in-app purchases like with many other apps for travelers, thank goodness. The app is compatible with the iPhone 3GS/4/4S/5 and third-gen iPod touch and up running iOS 6.0 or later.
iTravelGo is just 99 cents and that’s a small price to pay in order to be able to access key information about the world’s top cities from the palm of your hand, without having to access Internet and incur high roaming charges from your mobile operator.
Speaking of traveling abroad, Sebastien has a few tips about traveling internationally with your iPhone.