Top three apps for Australian road trips

The rise of the smartphone has made planning and running your road trips easier than ever. It’s a tool seven million Australians have said they can no longer live without, according to a survey by Roy Morgan. Whether you’re after car rental in Melbourne, Brisbane, or anywhere else on Australia’s east coast, the humble smartphone can save you a lot of time and headaches.

Here are three apps you shouldn’t go without on your next roadie!

Waze

Waze is a navigation app with a social twist – much of the data on it is crowd-sourced from users. It can tell you all about the route you’re travelling on, including real-time traffic conditions (based on others simply using the app to navigate) as well as things the community has entered in, such as road hazards, accidents and sometimes even speed cameras.

Waze is able to do this well, as it’s the largest community-based traffic and navigation app. Software with crowd-sourced information like this benefits from network effects – the more people are using it, the more useful it becomes, which then prompts even more people to use it.

Roadtrippers

This app is perfect for planning your road trip and features everything from accommodation sites to points of interest. The coolest feature of the app would have to the way you can enter in a number of waypoints, and the app will find a series of interesting things for you to do and see on the way. If you don’t have time to do it on that particular trip, you can save it to your “Bucket List” for another time. There is no better app for finding interesting things on your road trip.

Yelp

Road trips often necessitate eating out; unless you’re staying in a motel, you’ll often have nowhere to cook. That’s where Yelp comes in handy. It can help you find all sorts of great places to eat, all with reviews from real customers using the app. This is particularly handy for local restaurants or cafes, where you might not be sure if they’re worth taking a chance on. Using Yelp is like getting the inside knowledge on all the best places to eat, wherever you are.

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Feb 2, 2017 at 3:19pm PST

There you have it – three unmissable apps for making your next road trip better than the last. As always, if you’re after a rental car, look no further than East Coast Car Rentals!