Mobile Travel Apps: Triposo

Identifying visitors/tourists on the street of a popular destination has always been pretty easy as they’ll be the one’s with one of a variety of travel guides and/or street maps in the hand; you might even spot some with a phrasebook trying to work out what how to say “Where do I find the bus for…?”

Two months ago I had the pleasure of coming across an app for smartphones that negates carrying guide books, maps and covers those most used phrases in the local language. The added bonus is that this can all be available offline - free of charge! Like the location and featured accommodation/activity? Make your reservation right there and then (this needs to be online of course)! 

TRIPOSO is that app and has pleasantly surprised me through the planning stages of my trip to South America as well during my travels in Peru at the moment. Oh, and did I mention the app is free to download? You can of course upgrade to Triposo Pro which promises ad-free experience in the app with future benefits - over the obvious in that you’re supporting the team constantly developing a better app.

Search for the country you're interested in and it will then list regions as well as main cities. In the event you’re sure you’re going to travel to any of these regions, you can download the relevant city guide, or that for the region. Planning on criss-crossing the country? Download the whole country’s info - after the initial part of the download, the app allows you to carry on searching/browsing the particular section while it downloads the balance in the background. 

Once you’re out on the street/road and need to check something about the place you’re going, just open the app and all the information will be available offline. This is ideal when you’re trying to save cellular data or don’t have internet access for some time.

Some of the sections on the "Country" screen

Sections that are visible once the app opens to a particular country; 

(for the purposes of the review I’m using “Peru”)

- Regions                           - Cities

- National parks                  - Islands

- Saved Places                    - Practicalities

- Background

Selecting a particular region, if you don’t want to only look at a particular city, the following sections are shown then;

- Cities                             - National parks

- Practicalities                   - Background

"Region">"Cities" screen

For each section you download, you have access to a basic phrasebook of the local language in categories of "basic", "transport" etc (for Peru I got the Spanish one) and a currency converter where you can choose your home currency. The city guide sections also include map where you can plan your “city walk” depending on distance you want to cover, and also calculating it from your present location. This “city walk” will then cover the most prominent sights in the city.

"City" Screen

Once you’ve selected a city you get a choice of a variety of sections i.e.

• Sightseeing
• Eat and drink
• Nightlife
• Hotels (incl. hotels, hostels & guesthouses)
• Tours & shows
• Shopping
• Activities
• Events
• Metro 
• Saved places (saved by you on Triposo)
• Practicalities (health & safety)
• Background  (culture & history)

Through any of these sections you can then make your tour or accommodation reservations, in addition to seeing on a map where the location is in relation to where you are (or plan to be). Reservations are done via booking.com, and I can vouch for it that I’ve had no problems with any of the bookings I’ve done in the past two months through the Triposo app. Destinations, sights, accommodation, restaurants etc can also be reviewed directly on here.

Another great feature is the “Saved Places” where you save the location of the place you’re at (if it isn’t in the app already of course), enter the name and write a comment or note about it. This will then be available with all your other downloaded info on the place you’re at or have just left.

Phrasebook, Currency Converter and City Walk map

In addition to this, each sight, hotel, hostel, location in the app, can be saved and can then be accessed directly through “My saved places”. Just one of the examples of how you can get into any section from anywhere in the app via the search bar at the top of the window. You can even contribute about your local area and just add all your favourite shops, restaurants and bars - even the favourite guesthouse down the road.

As much as I love having the physical travel guides and reading them, when it gets to visiting several countries then all those books are going to add a lot of weight to your backpack. You can now have access to all this info straight off your smartphone. Triposo is also constantly sending through little updates which happen when you have wifi connection and open the app; these include tips and comments most relevant to the sections you’ve downloaded. 

App updates as such happen through the normal App Centre equivalent on iPhone and Android.

I can’t rave about this enough, go out there, download the app Now! 

Disclaimer: I've written this review totally independent of any websites and/or entities mentioned above and all opinions and comments in this post are my own.