TOP 12 FREE TRAVEL APPS

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself. - Harvey Fierstein

Saturday, November 2, 2013 (DAY 607)
Many people have wondered how I’m able to travel to so many countries without having an unlocked iPhone, which I purposely wouldn’t pay for a prepaid SIM card in each country anyways because I never know when I’m picking up and leaving, plus there are so many great communication and other various apps to utilize for free on Wi-Fi or offline that I’ve found it quite easy to get by and continue to save money by not adding this to my expense list. So in no particular order these are a list of 12 free (keyword being FREE) apps that I have found to be extremely useful as a backpacker and budget traveler, please note that all logo icons are © if their respective companies:

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12. XE CURRENCY CONVERTER: 
Extremely invaluable app to use when traveling internationally and it doesn’t matter if you are going to one country for a week or traveling through multiple countries. As you are able to connect via Wi-Fi you will receive the most accurate currency conversions and when you are deal with things in comparison to the U.S. Dollar and are looking to calculate ₡500 (Costa Rican Colons) to $1 or ₩1,062 (Korean Wons) to $1 this will assist you greatly in bartering or just knowing what you are spending or should be paying for things. For me, I never enter a country without having an idea of what the international currency exchange rate should be or is.

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11. GOOGLE TRANSLATE: 
Exactly what it is described as, and while any translation app is not perfect it is a valuable tool to have. I also suggest downloading free versions of other more specific translation apps depending on the area of the world you are in. For example I had a number of English to Spanish dictionary and translation apps while in Latin America and have changed them out for others while in Asia. 

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10. TRIP ADVISOR: 
This is great on a number of levels and most people are familiar with it so there’s really not a lot to say about it, other than useful. Period. 

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9. HOSTELWORLD: 
I’ve noticed that while HostelBoookers also owns HW, this app is better as it tends to show more hostels and the navigation function is better in my opinion. For whatever reason I have checked both HB and HW on a number of occasions and have noticed that HW shows more places that are listed at cheaper prices, and also feel that more hostels are on this site.  

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8. DROPBOX: 
Anyone familiar with this app understands the usefulness, and while traveling knowing that you can save or retrieve secure documents is always a welcome peace of mind, especially the fact that it uses a 256-bit AES encryption and two-step verification.

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7. COUCHSURFING: 
Once again this is an excellent resource to search for hosts or social meetups and activities while traveling. This can be utilized either while you are in the area or prior to arriving and since the idea behind CS is a global network of hosts and surfers connecting for free it will certainly save you money on your traveling.

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6. SKYSCANNER: 
This is by far one of the best apps when it comes to finding cheap flights. As I mentioned in early blog topics about saving money–always taking time for research days–this app or website allows you to search from a broad origination location (an entire countries aiports) to the entire world as your destination. It also does not limit you to search for flights within a plus or minus 3-day period but you can search for the entire month or the entire year. This is how I realized that the cheapest time to fly from LAX to Thailand was the third week in August, but again I took the time to compare against every other travel site (Kayak, Travelocity, Expedia, even specific airline websites, etc).

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5. FLASHLIGHT: 
This has been used multiple times, whether I’m packing up early in the morning and try not to turn on the light in the dorm waking everyone else up or when the power goes out (which occurred often in Central America).

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4. SKYPE: 
The best overall international communication tool I feel since it can be used both for video (when the Wi-Fi signal is strong enough in both locations) as well as for just talking by turning the video function off. 

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3. FACEBOOK MESSENGER: 
Once again most people I’ve met traveling have Facebook but this app is great as it just loads the necessary communication aspect and doesn’t take the unnecessary time to load all of the ridiculous notifications and game requests. 

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2. Wi-Fi FINDER: 
An extremely valuable resource as Wi-Fi hot spots are not always the easiest to locate, especially in some of the more underdeveloped countries I’ve spent time in as well as First World countries that have an abundant of Wi-Fi hot spots throughout the metro areas. 

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1. GOOGLE VOICE or PINGER: 
There are a handful of other communication apps out there (WhatsApp, Kakao, Viber, Voxer, etc) but for me I enjoy Pinger and Google Voice because they provide me with a dedicated U.S. phone number. The difference is that Pinger is similar to Skype as you can add monetary credits to this app to make calls, however I use it to text family and friends back home to organize a time to Skype. As long as you use the app (Pinger) at least once in a 30-day period you will maintain this dedicated number. Google Voice is great but MUST be setup while in the United States. Also I’ve noticed that there are a handful of other communication apps specific to areas of the world that are free, such as Kakao in Korea (everyone uses this), but in order to download it for free you must have a number to receive the SMS code to actually use it, which is the case for other apps and other things. So a must have in my opinion. 

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MY RTW PERSONAL EXPERIENCE:
My alarm is blaring that absolutely atrocious sound right next to my ear, as I didn’t want to miss my 6am wake-up call since I was meeting my mom and Soon-Young, our volunteer translator, at their hotel at 7am. Still groggy and sleep-deprived I crawl out of bed and head directly for the shower. I can’t tell you how thankful I am to be in a First World country that has running hot water in abundance, especially since it is Autumn here and the mornings and evenings can be quite nippley. Yeah, I figure showing up to meet my mother looking like I’m smuggling peanuts through my shirt wouldn’t be the best morning impression. Even giving myself almost 45-minutes before I need to leave Mugunghwa house for the 15-minute walk, I still feel as though I am frantically running late. I do the standard double-check of my things since I have my overnight bag with me to stay in Iksan over the weekend and after a quick cup of coffee I’m out the door. The cool morning air wakes me up even more, and the quiet street leading down our small neighborhood to the busier main road is a serene feeling. Even as the sun is shining and there are few clouds to disrupt the clear blue skies, I already can sense that today is going to be a great day.

When I arrive at the hotel, I enter the extremely small lobby where no one seems to be present and walk up the very narrow staircase to the third floor. As I get to her room, I notice that she is staying in room #303, and think this is only fitting, as this number is the area code for Denver–my hometown. Represent B! While their hotel room is the typical Asian-size of being small, there is a nice pillow-top queen size bed, large flat screen television, and a full bathroom and they have told me that they are well rested, unlike myself, and enjoyed the hotel. Looking at our bus ticket that departs at 8:40am, I begin to calculate our route to the bus terminal on the best free subway app in Seoul, Jihachul. According to the information it will take us around 35-minutes to reach our destination with only one subway line transfer and passing through 12 stations. First, we have about a 10-minute walk to the Hognik subway station and when we arrive at the bus terminal we have little options for breakfast, and are left eating McDonalds, since we know it will be 6-hours or more before we arrive in Yeosu–the city I was born in.  

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Just as we are finishing our fantastically healthy meal, right on schedule there is an announcement over the PA that our bus will begin boarding in a few short minutes. As we climb aboard the large coach bus, it reminds me of the buses in South America with how relatively spacious the seats are, however the difference is the large flat screen at the front and the ultra-reclining seats. Since Soon-Young is sitting directly behind us it makes it a bit difficult to carry on a conversation, since you are contorting you bodies and attempting to talk between the seats. After about 30-minutes I can no longer keep my eyes open and apologize to my mother for being so exhausted, but she tells me to get plenty of rest and that it is a long bus ride. Unsure how long I was asleep, when I awake my mother is there, smiling at me with just an enormous grin. She still continues to grasp my hand tightly almost as if she were to let it go that I would float away. The countryside of Korea is very beautiful with a wide variety of landscapes–passing fields and farmlands, hills covered in dense trees with colorful dying leaves, rivers and a few lakes, as well as the view of towering mountains off in the distance–I cannot help but feel a sense of pride in the land that is part of my heritage. 

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We arrive in Yoseou just after 1:30pm, and since Eastern only purchased the three bus tickets for us here, we were left to purchase our transportation to Iksan as well as provide the cost for our Soon-Young back to her home, which is about 90-minutes South of Seoul. Weekends are typically a busy travel time for Koreans, especially during the Fall, I am told, as many people get out of the city to enjoy the changing colors of Autumn (leafers) and so we’ve decided to secure our transportation before heading to lunch. Somewhere along the way to the train station, my mother has invited and convinced Soon-Young to join us in Iksan for the weekend and once again after a quick phone call to her husband she has agreed to stay with us through Sunday. If you have ever had to try to communicate with someone through a translator you understand the slow and often frustrating process it can be, and so I am extremely thankful that her family is so relaxed about their mother being gone all weekend. Soon-Young tells me that her friends are actually jealous of her ability to travel with us around the country because her husband is much more laid back than most Korean men, which tend to dominate the household and require their wives to ask permission to do simple things. Even though we arrive at the train terminal, we are uncertain there will be seats available on the KTX (South Koreas high-speed train). Once again, thankfully there are seats available for the 90-minute train ride versus the 3-hour bus and while we are at the terminal we’ve also decided to purchase our tickets for Sunday. Done and done, yo! Now it’s time to get our grub on, and while I still have the brick of nutritious Mickey D’s floating around in my stomach that will take decades to digest, I’m ready for what I am told is one of my mother’s favorite seafood restaurants. I can’t remember everything that we had, only that it was extremely delicious and much of it was raw fish and reminded me of sushi days with Andrea Midget-Loving Vlad.  

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After lunch, my mother has a few places that she would like to take show me and so we begin with one of many taxi rides around the city for the afternoon. The city of Yeosu is a peninsula in the South Jeolla Province and was founded in 1949 and consists of 317 islands, 49 of which are inhabited, while 268 are uninhabited. The first place we arrive at is the pier. I am told that she brought me here because she would like to take the ferry that circles the harbor, but unfortunately this no longer exists. Taking our time walking back across the long concrete pier I learn a sad bit of history as I’ve asked if she would ever like to return to this city and live because it is so beautiful. I’m told that she would not, because this place holds many sad memories for her. This was the place that she and my birthfather lived before he abandoned us, as well as the place that she said goodbye to me for the final time before placing me up for adoption. As I learn this I cannot help but give my mom a big hug as she wipes a few tears from her eyes, and I tell her that I hope that being here with her will help replace those sad memories with good ones.

The next place we visit is also hard for her, but she shows me the area where she and my birthfather lived for some time, which is also nearby his parents home. She tells me that if they were still alive, particularly my birthfather’s mother, that she would certainly want to meet me. At a loss for words with so much of my past being answered, the translator does tell me that my mother is glad that I am not asking questions about my birth father. I tell her that out of respect from what I had learned, primarily from our first meeting on Tuesday, she preferred that I did not try to make contact with him, and with that I had decided I would continue to respect her wishes. I know that I am leaving many things out, it’s just that it’s a very personal and emotional situation that I like to keep private, but I still enjoy sharing what I feel comfortable with doing. Our last and final stop for the evening, since our train departs from Yeosu at 6:54pm, is the area that I was born. Unfortunately since there has been an overhaul of new construction, the existing medical facility is no longer standing and even mores so after more than 30-years it is difficult to even pin point exactly where the structure may have stood. While many people know where they were born and had these answers for the entirety of their life, as adoptees, it’s very difficult to not feel certain about some of the most basic pieces of information, but this day has been a very important one that has brought a significant part of closure in my life. 

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Boarding the KTX (Korea Train Express), which is operated by Korail, I am excited to experience this high-speed train that has reached speeds of 352.4 km/h (219.0 mph) and can carry upwards of 500 passengers when configured with additional cars. The second we clear the platforms at the station, the accelerating speeds begin to feel as though you are in a smooth moving rocket. Even though it is nightfall, the view out the window becomes a blur of lights as we wisp pass small towns. Still feeling the exhaustion from the busy scheduled week that Eastern had us on, I find myself falling asleep yet again, but this time I find myself falling asleep on my mom’s shoulder and I am told later that she took several photos of this because she found it so cute. Yeah, I’m pretty precious I’ll have to admit, like a cat riding fire-breathing unicorn jumping over rainbows as I hold my gold pistol and my bandana is flapping in the wind (that’s for you, Rachel Pearsall). Since my local friend Ara’s university is only 30-minutes from Iksan we had been communicating via Kakao as much as possible since Wi-Fi hot spots are not as common in Yeosu as they are in Seoul, but she has agreed to meet us at the train terminal in Iksan when we arrive at 8:45pm, since I was expecting our Soon-Young to return to her family in the afternoon, leaving us without a way to verbally communicate. Ara’s only concern was that the last bus to her Uni town departed at 11:30pm and I believe she said there is a 1am curfew for her dorm where if she were late then she would be locked out for the entire night. I told her that we could just have a brief meet up over dinner if she’d like since I knew she was pressed for time.  

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Just as she promised, Ara, was there waiting for us as we arrived in Iksan. I told her that I didn’t have a chance to message her because I didn’t have Wi-Fi to let her know that our volunteer translator would be accompanying us, but it seems like she wanted to meet my birth mom as well, since this was also her first experience meeting a Korean adoptee being reunited with their birth parent. Thinking that we would be heading to a restaurant first, my mother had other plans and piled the four of us into another taxi and several minutes later we arrived at the ‘Iksan Ten Million Chrysanthemum Festival.’ It was very impressive in spite of the cold weather and as we walked through the different areas we came to the back where there was a stage and a live band performing. Ara leaned over and told me that she was shocked because these guys were from Hongae University. Apparently Hongdae is very popular for musicians as they will setup makeshift stages on the street, complete with amps and microphones, and provide the public with free impromptu concerts. After about an hour at the festival, we’ve all agreed that it’s time to get some food. 

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We arrive at one of my mom’s favorite restaurants, Dangsan, and while we get out of the taxi she tells Soon-Young that she is going to run up to her apartment very quickly, but to go in and begin ordering whatever we would like. Concerned that the time is getting late for Ara’s last opportunity to take the bus, she tells me it should be fine. We grab a booth towards the back corner of the restaurant and I love Korea because when you are ready or need anything there are typical buttons that will ring the server. I suppose it is similar to the buttons to grab the attention of a flight attendant. I wonder how my friends that work in restaurants would like hearing the ding-dong constantly. As it seems that my mother has been gone for more than 30-minutes Soon-Young tells me that my mother is a bit embarrassed of her small apartment, but that she has only been there for a few months and is in the process of moving so there are boxes everywhere. We assume that she is organizing her place to accommodate the sleeping arrangements. When she does arrive, the time is about 10:30pm and we order some fried chicken and my mom asks for some beer. I think it’s so funny that she enjoys beer, as I suppose because it’s such a part of Korean culture it can be viewed a bit as Europeans having wine quite often. After the meal has been cleared, my mother leans across to Ara and tells her that she would love to have her stay the night with us if she would like since it is already close to midnight. I feel that if there were more people randomly around my mother would have invited them over as well. By the time we reach her apartment, which is a short 5-minute walk-up a slight inclined street, it’s close to 12:45am. In spite of the small living quarters my mother is very VERY well organized (remind you of anyone?) and she begin pulling out blankets and pillows, even pajamas for our new guests. Since there is only a queen size mattress I share the bed with my mom while Ara and Soon-Young are happy and used to sleeping on the floor (awe very Asian-style indeed) after several blankets are put down for some thin padding. I find it fighting as well that my birth mom’s home would be exactly the 290th new place to call home since I left Colorado back in March of 2012. As we are winding down for the evening my mother puts on the television and there is a hilarious K-Pop awards show on and before I can even get enthralled with it I am fast asleep. 

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