For those of us who are lucky to be safe in our homes while we wait out this COVID-19 quarantine, it’s easy to just spend all day watching Netflix or surfing the net. While we can’t and shouldn’t be traveling for leisure right now, this extra time is a perfect opportunity to learn important new skills or gain knowledge that could give you an edge while traveling.
Here are just a few productivity apps that will help you unlock new skills essential for travel that might just come in handy for your next trip.
Duolingo: Learn a new language
My nephew has been using this app to learn Korean because he’s obsessed with BTS, so I decided to download it and try it for myself. I think it’s really cool because it “gamifies” language learning. You can choose a number of different languages like Spanish, French, German, Japanese.
If you’re planning to travel to another country soon, Duolingo can help you learn the language there to help increase your communication skills. The free app offers a large library of lessons for each language and simulated conversations that make it easy to learn with your choice of how long you spend on it per day.
Taking the time to learn a foreign language could make you even more valuable to future employers and help you communicate with locals without having to check phrasebooks. I’m brushing up on Spanish and trying Korean and am enjoying this more than how foreign language classes used to be taught back in college.
If you prefer traveling around Fantasy realms from books and TV shows, there’s even an option to learn Klingon or High Valyrian! 🙂 Yeah!
Download Duolingo here.
Loop Habit Tracker: Time Management
Anyone who has even been put in charge of making travel arrangements for the whole family or is in charge of coming up with the itinerary for the entire barkada will realize just how critical time management skills are to trip planning.
If you don’t plan properly, you might find yourself stuck with extended layovers and dead time with nothing to do and nowhere to go. Poor time management could also leave you trying to cram in as many destinations and sights or missing important connections.
Many of us find ourselves being unproductive at work or daily lives because we just can’t shake our bad habits. Loop Habit Tracker makes it easier to form productive rituals by setting goals.
You can access dozens of preset “recipes” of behaviors that you must repeat on a daily basis. Sticking to a schedule, learning to prioritize, focusing on one task at a time and trying to minimize distractions can be habit-forming. Over time, these behaviors should become second nature and help you manage your time better when you do get to travel.
Download Loop Habit Tracker here.
Backpacker: Travel Trivia
Backpacker is a globetrotting trivia game where you save up money to continue your travels by going on various missions and applying for odd jobs. At the end of the day, you can splurge on a hotel or risk sleeping in the streets.
This kid-friendly educational game is great for anyone who wants to brush up on their general knowledge about cities landmarks, sites, and buildings in other countries. Learn about the world one city at a time right at home with a few clicks on your phone.
Who knows? Those random facts might actually come in handy when you actually travel to the destinations. Plus, you can enjoy the mental stimulation and enjoy completing a memento collection by gathering tokens from each city virtually.
Download Backpacker here.
Insight Timer: Stress Management & Meditation
Traveling for extended periods of time can be extremely stressful. Being in a new destination can be an overwhelming and disorienting experience. With all the hassles of delayed or missed flights, having to deal with traffic, communication barriers and other similar stress-inducing factors, you might just find yourself always tired, cranky and irritable.
In the past few years, meditation has become one of the most popular wellness trends. Studies have shown that meditation can really improve concentration and attention, relieve symptoms of anxiety, depression, and pain. Just calming yourself down and meditating can help you handle stressful situations in a healthy manner.
Insight Timer is a free smartphone app and online community for meditation that features a social platform with lively discussion groups and local meetings run by its users. You can listen to soothing sounds, music, or guided meditations posted by contributing experts to help calm the mind, manage stress, sleep deeply and improve happiness. This one is not just for travel, but might be useful for your overall mental health epecially these days.
Download Insight Timer here.
Seek: Natural History
Seek is like a Treasure Hunting app that gives users fun facts about the natural world around us. This innovative app created by National Geographic and the California Academy of Sciences takes people outside and connects them with nature. By using image recognition technology, it can identify wildlife and plants. Users can earn badges for seeing different types of birds, amphibians, plants, and fungi and participate in monthly observation challenges with Our Planet on Netflix.
By pointing your camera at any plant or animal while you’re in Seek, the app will tell you its history, classification, and seasonality. It also shows a map of where it’s located near you. The more animals and plants you record on camera with the app, the more likely you are to complete challenges and earn badges. Test it out in nearby surroundings first like your garden. The knowledge about the organisms all around you could come in handy for future trips and hopefully inspire you to respect nature and care for the environment when you travel.
Download Seek: Natural History here.
Got any other suggestions for useful travel apps that you use to boost skills for travel? Feel free to leave a comment below.