“Hello, my name is Yaya and I am an apps hoarder.”
I have a habit of downloading apps on my phone with the hope of using them at some point and yet never opening them once or even acknowledgeing them until my phone start to run out of memory and I need to delete some. That being said, there are some apps within the lot that I ALWAYS use on a daily (sometimes even hourly) basis. These apps vary in what they offer but what they do, they do very well!
These are the apps I am currently obsessed with:
- Bloglovin: Part of being a blogger is an full-blown obsession with blogs 😉 and Bloglovin truly helps me deal with my obsession by providing a place for me to catch up on all my favourite blogs! It would be a pain to have to check every single blog I follow all the time to see if they’ve been updated and BlogLovin helps keep me on top of things. Seeing as a lot of blogs get updated quite frequently, this is probably my most used app outside of my “Phone” and “Messages” apps! You can also follow Hand Luggage Only on BlogLovin (cheeky prompt there) so definitely download it and follow us on Bloglovin! 😉
- Tripadvisor: My go-to app for checking that the hotel I’m about to book is not a dump in the middle of Mordor!
- Rightmove: This feeds my curiousity so much! I love looking at beautiful homes and although, Rightmove is my go to place when I’m looking to move homes, some of the best moments on this app are those spent looking at home that you don’t actually plan on moving into! There’s a huge variety of homes on here with amazing decor and space saving ideas so definitely check this one out if you’re into home decor as much as I am!
- TheTrainLine: The best app to have to place your travel across the UK via train. The train service in the UK is pretty good and a reliable way to travel so if you’re visiting the UK or indeed live n the UK, this is a must have app!
- Bus Times: This one’s for London and is a must-have for every one in London regardless of it you’re there permanently or temporarily! This app tell you what bus to expect at your bus stop right now to the minute! Pretty much everyone uses the buses in London and so with this app, there’s no more waiting around for buses that seem more elusive than the Loch Ness monster. It even tells you the route the bus will go through along with it arrival time at each of the stops along the route.
- Skyscanner: The traveller’s must have app! As long as you’re every so slightly flexible, this is one the best apps that anyone interested in travel should have!
- Angry Birds (pretty much every edition ever made): I jumped aboard the Angry Bird bandwagon and have never looked back since! Only hassle is trying to play it on the underground where the train keeps shaking as you go along (not vigourously but it does shake) which leads to some ridiculously frustrating game play! 🙂 Other than that, I pretty much play this at every chance given
- Shazam: Never again do I have to (in most cases – wrongly) guess the name of a song every again! Shazam has you covered by listening to the song and telling what song it is.
- Tube Map: Much needed for planning your travel across London on the tube!
- Rebtel: My international calling app! They keep reducing the prices and they’re pretty reliable. You can re-route your calls via local calling minutes or via Data/WiFi so it’s pretty flexible with regards to how it works.
- Uber: Just found our properly about them and their prices are phenomenal! In some instances, it’s even cheaper than taking public transport (particularly if there’s more than one person travelling). Their customer service is pretty good too! Plus if you sign up using this link here – you get £10 off your first ride!
- Toy Balls: Fairly simple game but oh so addictive!
- VSCO: I’m a bit over instagram filters. I tend not to use filters that much anymore but when I do, VSCO is a pretty good source of filters (and photo-editing tools).
- Afterlight: When it comes to plain photo editing (no filters), Afterlight appears to have the upperhand over VSCO. It’s got some great filters too but it’s strength is the core photo editing tools. In summary, VSCO for Filters, Afterlight for stuff like chnaging contrast, increasing saturation, straighten photos…etc
- VLC Player: You can plan video files on here without having to use the official Apple video player. It plays almost all formats of videos so this is a must have app not just for your phone but also for your laptop!
- Netflix: Great way to pass the time catching up on old TV series! I should probably never admit to this but I went through a phase where I watched the entire 5 (or 6) seasons of Gossip Girl! I started off with it as background noise while I did other things at home but by season 2, I was hooked! 🙂
- Candy Crush: This is the most frustrating app on my phone and I’m this close to deleting it. I was one of those people who started off thinking “Why all the hype?” and even after downloading it and going past the first 10 levels, I still didn’t get why everyone had been going on and on about it and then, out of the blue, I found myself playing Candy Crush in every single spare moment I had! How did that happen? And why do I want to delete it? I’m stuck at a ridiculously hard level, so hard that the instructions don’t even make sense! Why aren’t there cheats for this game? Hehehehe!!! 🙂
- Pocket: Save an article you like to read later (with or without internet connection). Works on pretty much every website and particularly great for New York Times articles which seem to go on and on for ages!
- Tripit: My cousin introduced me to Tripit and even though I’m not keen on the colours used in this app, I can not deny how utterly useful it is (I have no idea why I don’t even like the colours, they just really bugs me). Tripit gets all your flight details downloaded via your email and lets you access all your information from one source! It even sends you reminders so you never have to miss your flights and helps you organise your travel so much better.
Of course, there are those apps that require the honourable mention as they’re constantly on the go too (even though they’re mature enough to not constitue an apps obsession). I’m referring to the Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram apps here of course! I use them quite a lot (as you probably already know).
There you go, those are my 18 apps! Which apps are on your list? I’d love to find out about other apps that are really useful or even just entertaining and I perhaps haven’t heard of so please do let me know what other apps you would add to this list! 🙂
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