We took very little paper with us on the trip. Just our airline itineraries, and some address info for hostel reservations. This helped us travel light and easy. Here’s what we relied on:
Dropbox:
I saved every confirmation in a separate country folder along with a list of alternate places to stay, things to do, and what to eat. We used the favorite feature in Dropbox to make sure we’d have access tithe files even when offline. I also downloaded public transit system PDF maps.
Kindle App:
We bought Rick Steves Europe Through the Back Door and Rick Steves Italy guidebooks electronically. It saved a lot of weight to pack these on the tablets! Also, we had some fun reading too.
Eurail Rail Planner:
Offline time tables for every train system in Europe, for the most part.
Rick Steves Audio Europe:
A bunch of offline free walking tours. Rick is knowledgeable and funny.
Ticket To Ride Game:
Specifically the Switzerland map.
LocusPro: (Android only)
An awesome mapping application that can cache maps for offline use. We didn’t use it quite as much as I anticipated, but it was still very important when we did need it!
Numbers:
It’s not quite Excel, but I made a sheet to track our currency spendings and wallet balances as we went. Handy when tracking dollars, euros, pounds and franks! Double handy when also tracking prepaid chip and pin card balances.
Duolingo:
Handy app for learning other languages. We didn’t use it as much as we should have. One overwhelming part of the trip was how many language changes we had.
WordPress App:
For blogging offline.
NexusMediaImporter & USB OTG cable:
We were able to download photos to the Nexus as we went. Handy for blogging!
