The best apps for sightseeing on holiday

Spotted by Locals

The highly acclaimed guide apps Spotted by Locals are essentially mini-blogs with tips from locals. There are plenty of travel guide apps that promise hidden gems off the beaten track, but Spotted by Locals delivers on this promise. All ‘Spotters’ who write about their favourite places in a city are hand-picked and visited before they are allowed to participate. As a result, the sights they recommend are often original and authentic to that city.

You won’t find highlights like the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre here, so this app might not be the best option for your first visit to a city. If you return to a city often and have already seen all the tourist attractions, you will probably want to visit places that are less well-known. Spotted by Locals started as a blog about Amsterdam, but has since grown into an international network with dozens of cities. The main language is English and each city can be purchased separately in-app. You can download the travel guides before departure, after which they are available offline.

Travel report

Dutch travel guides for special destinations. Watch Dutch videos, documentaries, informative articles and 360-degree videos. In the app you will find interactive maps with hotspots and background information, podcasts, preparation tips and an overview of the offers of various travel organizations. There are also tips from other travelers. The destinations include Iran, Jordan, Croatia, Montenegro, Sri Lanka and Costa Rica.

Culture Trip

The Culture Trip app and associated website have an overview of the places you should visit for almost every destination. For popular destinations, there are even multiple pages, for example about the most popular neighborhoods, the best restaurants, bars and the like. The emphasis is also on lesser-known sights and surprising discoveries. You can create a personal travel schedule based on recommendations made by travel experts and locals. Gradually, the revenue model also creeps in here more and more and you get tips for excursions and guided tours. Maybe being taken along by a guide or walking around with a group is really something for you, but of course you can also go out on your own with the tips from this app.

Instagram

You might not think of it right away, but Instagram can also be used as a travel guide. Based on recent photos, you immediately get an impression of how much fun it is. The danger of this is that you end up in yet another TikTok queue with throngs of tourists, but of course you are there yourself: if a lot of photos are taken at a location of a lot of duck-faced influencer types, you better run away.

TripAdvisor

The TripAdvisor app is aimed at holidaymakers and offers all kinds of possibilities. For example, you can search for the cheapest flights or hotels, but you can also find plenty of places to visit in the app. You can view hotspots near your current location or start planning your next trip. Under ‘things to do’ you will find the most popular sights in a certain city or region.

What are the sights that you really have to see? Where can you go on a rainy day? And which tour or cruise provider offers the best value for money? Many options then allow you to filter in a specific way – for example, you can easily indicate the price range in which you want to search for restaurants. TripAdvisor is extra useful for holidaymakers because you can also quickly search for a flight from the airport. In addition, each location is provided with an average review score, based on the experiences of others.

Foursquare

Foursquare started out as a kind of game, where you had to try to become mayor (mayor) by checking in at your favorite places as often as possible. The app managed to collect a huge number of locations in this way. This has resulted in an impressive location database, with which you can see the most visited and popular places in your area at a glance. By indicating whether you are looking for a restaurant, museum or other location, you will see the most popular options in a list. If you have friends who also use Foursquare, you will immediately see in this list whether they recommend a certain location. Nowadays Foursquare also offers all collected information about locations in all kinds of other apps. For checking in at locations, they have released the separate app Swarm. This app can also be found in our list of location trackers, with which you can keep track of where you have been.

With a tap on a location you will see the exact address, with where possible also a phone number that you can call to make a reservation. Under the heading ‘People Talk About’ you can read all the recommendations or criticisms of previous visitors and the number at the top of the overview is a score generated based on the popularity of a place. Finally, you can also indicate whether or not you enjoyed your visit. Information that other Foursquare users can also use. Especially in a strange city you benefit in this way from the collective knowledge of locals and previous visitors.

Guides in Apple Maps

Guides in Apple Maps show you lists of the most important sights in certain destinations. Apple has partnered with well-known brands such as Lonely Planet to make this possible. You can also create your own guides in Apple Maps, but you can’t add tourist descriptions to them. To test this, enter ‘San Francisco’, for example. You’ll then see a number of guides, including one from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Guides in Google Maps

Google Maps also offers a range of handy lists of attractions. Here too, we search for ‘San Francisco’ and are then presented with a map of interesting places. You can see at a glance whether the location is highly rated. Google also provides suggestions for hotels (a revenue model) and shows what’s new in the area based on recent photos from Local Guides. You can immediately see in Google Maps which attraction is closest and navigate there with ease – on foot, by bike, in the car or by public transport.