7 essential apps for international road warriors
What I like about TripIt is that you can access it offline--well, most of the time. To ensure you'll be able to get your trip info when you leave your carrier's network, you should open up your itinerary while you're still connected so that the info is freshly stored. Later, when you get to your final destination, you should have no problem pulling up the itinerary offline. TripIt also sends email notifications if your flight is delayed, which is a great feature. For $49 per year, TripIt Pro adds more features, including notifications by text message, which are virtually useless if you happen to be in another country with a CDMA phone.
Plug Finder
Airplanes are becoming more and more tech-friendly: I see in-flight Wi-Fi, under-seat power sockets, and even USB chargers all the time now. But while my flight to Seoul had Wi-Fi, there were no sockets to be found, except in the lavatories, and everybody knows those stopped working 30 years ago. Unfortunately, this was an issue for me, because my little MacBook Air gets about six hours of battery life on a good day, and the flight was 11 hours long.
Luckily, I had a 2-hour layover in Narita. And instead of diving behind the airport's vending machines and ATMs in search of an outlet, I pulled up Plug Finder, a free iOS app that crowd-sources plug locations. (I may or may not have ended up unplugging a vending machine -- Narita is severely lacking in open plugs, at least in my terminal.)
Plug Finder is a simple app that displays nearby outlets on a map. In theory, the app can be used to display outlets anywhere, but realistically, you're only going to find a large number of pins in places like airports and train stations. The app uses your phone's GPS (which still works overseas, even if your mobile network is turned off, by the way), but you can also enter in your location manually or just tap and drag the map. Users can upload plug locations with a photo of the plug and a description of the area, and most people are smart enough to mention terminals and gate numbers in their descriptions.