Last updated on 9 December, 2022
Smartphones and tablets have become the must have for touring Australia, so much so that these days you’d be hard pressed to find any caravanner or camper without one. It is hardly surprising when travel apps, Australia specific, all on one convenient device can serve so many functions for your road trip.
The must have apps for travelling Australia are those that help you to plan, track and record your travels. Apps can also help you to navigate, communicate, save money, find the best caravan parks or free camping and much more. There seems to be multiple apsp for everything these days and because of this it can be confusing and overwhelming trying to decide which are the best and the ones you will actually use. After more than 2 years living on the road full-time we can take the guess-work out of deciding the best apps for a road trip.
What are the best apps for a road trip around Australia? Keep reading further for our comprehensive list.
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Recommended Travel Apps Australia
Camping Apps
WikiCamps Australia
WikiCamps Australia is the best app for camping in Australia and for this reason is the only paid app on our list priced at $8 for a lifetime time subscription. There are many features to this camping app with it most often being used to find suitable campgrounds or camp sites. The app is simple to use to find campgrounds, caravan parks and hostels that suit your specific needs by using the app’s many filters. For us, when looking for campgrounds we use the filters to find low-cost and free camping in Australia that are also dog friendly campgrounds.
The WikiCamp app also has a trip planner. We use the trip planner to keep track of where we have been more than we do for future planning but this more to do our travel plans change so often!
When it comes to using this camping app it can take a few attempts at using it to get the most out of it. Our advice is use the filters and work out which ones are best for your situation. The rest of the features of the app may or may not be useful to you, play around with it to discover what works for you.
Aircamp
Aircamp is a free camping Australia app. We think this is the other of the best camping apps available. We like it because it is easy to use, it has very similar filters to WikiCamps so you can easily find free camps and caravan parks that suit your needs.
The Aircamp app more pleasing visually and is easier to navigate however it doesn’t yet have the same amount of information and reviews so can feel a little lacking at times. That said, Aircamp has been more useful during Covid-19 travel restrictions due to a new filter for campgrounds open to essential travellers. This has been invaluable to full-time travellers who needed to find campgrounds and caravan parks during travel restrictions.
Must Have Travel Apps Australia
Polarsteps
Planning a road trip around Australia? Polarsteps is a roadtrippers app for planning, tracking and sharing your travels. Features of the Polarsteps app is that it has an itinerary planner, the travel tracker automatically tracks your travels for you, you have control over your privacy settings meaning you can either keep your travel information to yourself, share with family and friends or share with everyone. This travel app also allows you to upload and share photos and travel stories. It is one of the best travel journals you can use on your trip.
Gas Finder
The Gas Finder app is a free app available to download when you pay for the WikiCamps app subscription. This gas app gives information about where gas refills and gas bottle swaps are available as well as the prices (although the information on price isn’t always available).
Gas bottle refills and swaps prices vary greatly, as much as $5 – $15 in the same town so using Gas Finder can save you some money.
FuelMap Australia
This is the second and last app available for download with a WikiCamps subscription. We regularly use this fuel app or fuel prices app to find where fuel is available and to compare petrol prices. This petrol app relies on users keeping prices up to date so isn’t always 100% correct but for the most part it is reliable.
The other feature we like and use is the log book. Each time you buy fuel enter the details into the app including the cost, litres and odometer and Fuel Map Australia will keep a track of your fuel expenses and usage.
Related read: 7 Simple Ways to Improve Fuel Efficiency of Cars Towing a Caravan
Where is public toilet
When you’re out and about and need to use a toilet this toilet finder app is what you need. It’s very easy to use and there is a navigate feature which gives direction to the toilet of your choice.
Offline Maps
Offline Maps is the road trip app Australia you don’t use or think about until you need it. This is the app you can use when your phone navigator will not work because there is no internet available. We highly recommend having this app.
Emergency+
This is a basic app with only one purpose – to help you contact emergency services easily and quickly. The main benefit this app has for travellers over calling emergency services directly is that the app provides emergency services with accurate information on your location. I don’t know about you but most of the time when we are travelling if an emergency was to suddenly happen I would not know exactly where I was. This is the Emergency+ app you never want to use but could be very glad you have if there is an emergency.
Photography Apps
OpenSky
Drones are becoming increasingly popular and why not when the photos and video footage they can take are like nothing you can get with any other type of camera. Drones are fantastic but with them comes rules and regulations on when and where you can fly them. Open Sky is the app that provides this information; it will tell you where air space is restricted either permanently or temporarily such as during a bush fire or air search.
Pixlr
Pixlr is my choice and favourite app for easy photo editing. I have tried a few over the years and this is by far the best photo editor I have found; packed with features that are easy to navigate and use. Mostly I use it to crop, fix and resize photos to share on our blog and social media. Usually it takes just a few seconds to do each photo. It is also possible to create collages, add picture frames and more. Most features are free with this app with just some additional photo frames and stickers requiring payment. The other thing I really like about this add is there are very few ads.
Apps for Travel Entertainment
Podcast Player
A podcast is an audio series that you can download and listen to on a device such as your smart phone. You can find podcast series covering just about every subject and topic you can think of. I find podcasts are a great way to pass time while on long drives between destinations, to learn about new things and just for something fun.
I use Podcast Player to for my podcasts. I like it because I can subscribe to and download podcast episodes without having to log in to an account. There are many other podcast apps to choice from, Spotify is one a lot of people already use for listening to music.
Geocaching
What is Geocaching? Geocaching is a treasure hunt and geocaches are containers hidden with a log book and sometimes objects or ‘treasures’ inside. Geocaches vary from micro to large and the treasures they contain also vary greatly from buttons to toys, stickers to rocks, foreign money to bottle tops. Some geocaches ask you to leave all the items, others encourage you take an item or to do a swap.
It is the hunt that makes geocaching fun and interesting. We also like that they are usually hidden by locals at places of interest in their community that are often not on the tourist trail. When you find a geocache can you use the app to record your finds.
SkyView Lite
SkyView Lite is a free stargazing app. Find stars, planets, constellations and more in the night sky anywhere in the world. This is a fun app and interesting to use when you’re camping under those amazing night skies seen away from cities and major towns.
Apps for Day to Day Travel Life
WattsApp
WattsApp is a great app for messaging, calling and sharing photos privately with family and friends. It is necessary to register using your regular mobile number to use this app.
Banking App
While you are out on the road having the app on your phone for your bank will make it more convenient for you to do your banking than logging into your bank’s website. I know we use of our banking app at least a few times a week.
Phone Provider App
Our phone provider is Telstra so it is the Telstra app that we used. Your phone provider app should give you information about your account easily – bill amounts, internet usage, offers, payments and more.
Email App
Again, having your email service app on your phone is about easy access and keeping life simple. I don’t know about for others but we have as much correspondence as we can sent by email and not traditional post so having access to our email is necessary.
Wherever your travels around Australia takes you and for however long we wish you safe travels. Remember devices and travel apps Australia aid us but nothing beats getting out on the road, seeing new places, meeting new people and having great adventures. Go, make memories and live a good life.
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There are some great tips here. It’s so important to be prepared and I didn’t even know you could get apps to find fuel and toilets (what a great idea)!
I didn’t know either until we hit the road then it was necessary to know!
I did not know about the toilet app either until day one or two travelling. Now i use it regularly!
Brilliant list! It’s great that apps make travelling so much easier these days. I love the idea of the Sky View Lite app, as I’ve never been able to work out the constellations.
Some constellations require a lot of imagination and the app helps definitely 🙂
Information packed post here! Tons of great advice for anyone planning an Australian trip.
Thanks 🙂
Great list! I didn’t know there were apps for practical road trip needs like gas and toilet breaks, will be looking into this as its a great idea! Thank you
This is all so useful! I didn’t realise there were so many helpful apps available. I would LOVE to travel, Australia is somewhere that I have always wanted to see.
Thank you for all the useful apps, it will make the life so much easier when traveling around
Wow so many useful apps and so many for things I wouldn’t have even thought of! Great list!
Thanks. It wasn’t until we were on the road that we learnt which apps would be most useful.
What a brilliant list of apps to help you out and make your travelling easier. Something for everything isn’t there!
There sure is! There are endless numbers of apps available.
This is a great resource for a great road trip.
I have to say I think our most used app would be the toilet finder. With 4 kids and 2 potty training (and me having a weak bladder due to those 4 kids) it’s a must!
We also love geocaching. It’s such a great way to see places that you may not even think about.
Yes I can understand why the toilet finder app would be your most used lol.