TORONTO — Cate Lorimer can't remember the last time she lugged a phrasebook while criss-crossing foreign lands on weeks-long adventures.
When looking for help communicating with locals during a recent trip that took her to remote regions of Central America, she turned to a Spanish dictionary app on her phone.
"When you're backpacking, space is limited," said the 29-year-old Toronto resident, an avid traveller who recently launched the trip-sharing site SocialTravellers.
"It's so much easier to have your stuff on a phone."
From booking hotel rooms to flagging airline deals and finding the best airport restaurants, cellphone apps are helping many travellers streamline their trip planning — and take it on the road.
Three-quarters of Canadians planning to travel outside the country last summer said they would bring a smartphone or tablet and leave their laptop at home, according to a survey by the Conference Board of Canada. That's a significant increase from 2011, when only a third said they would.
While messaging and taking photos remain the main use for smartphones on trips, about a third of Canadians said they planned to book hotels, car rentals or tours through their device while travelling, up from 23 per cent in 2011, the survey shows.
"Very often, you want to make those sorts of bookings from the road — our laptops are put away in a bag somewhere and we want to do it from our smartphones," said Duncan Stewart, director of technology, media and telecommunications research for Deloitte Canada.
The use of travel apps is likely to increase as new technology makes it easier to make purchases through an app without having to fill out lengthy forms, he said.
Helen Hatzis, who heads the travel site Weekend Jaunt, said she has about 16 travel-related apps on her phone and relies on them for everything from budgeting to translation.
"Because I do weekend travel, I don't have a lot of time and I try to maximize my time and using apps helps," she said.
Some have purely practical purposes. One app, Expensify, allows Hatzis to take photos of her receipts and keep expenses on track. Another, GasBuddy, helps find the nearest gas station while on road trips.
Others aim to elevate the travel experience.
An app called LoungeBuddy, which catalogues lounges in more than 800 airports worldwide, helped Hatzis find a comfortable place to recover during a stopover on a long flight to India, she said.
"You can literally go in there, you can shower, you can have something to eat, you can take a nap, and it really helps ease the jet lag," she said.
Travellers who rely on apps abroad can rack up hefty phone bills, but Lorimer said she avoids roaming charges by connecting to free Wi-Fi in hostels, coffee shops and other locations.
Here are other apps that Canadians might find useful for travel:
— Hopper (Apple and Android): The app, made by a company based in Montreal and Boston, analyzes flight price data to tell travellers when to buy their tickets. It was the only travel app on the Apple App Store's best of 2015 list.
— City Mapper (Apple and Android): A guide to the best transit routes in more than a dozen cities around the world, including real-time departure times and disruptions.
— XE Currency (Apple and Android): Converts every currency in the world and saves the last updated rate so it can still be seen when there's no Internet.
