When you’re visiting another country, you generally expect to pay in the national currency, adapt to a new time zone, follow the local customs and speak a bit of the language. But you may not be prepared when Uber and Lyft don’t work.
Apps common in the United States sometimes don’t exist in other countries, and when they do, they may not offer the best prices or service.
Using a local ride-hailing service, for example, can prevent you from paying double the normal rate, or failing to find a driver at all, said Cara Laban, 32, who created TravelReddi, a website that helps users find local apps, after her frustrations using Uber in Spain led her to a local alternative.
Though ride-hailing apps are some of the most common alternatives abroad, travelers can also use local apps for help with navigation, public transportation, and restaurant reviews and reservations.
It’s best to download and test the apps before departing, Ms. Laban said. That includes completing settings like payment methods, location tracking and display language. You don’t want to be caught messing with your phone on a busy foreign street.
Here are some apps that can help you get around like a local:
Find a Ride
The dominant ride-hailing app in North America, Uber also works in many other parts of the world. But across much of Europe, Bolt and Freenow can be better choices.
Operating in 30 European countries, Bolt is “usually the fastest, cheapest” option, said Alex Sarellas, 40, based in Germany and chief executive of a GPS tracking company. It’s also widely used across Africa. Freenow, acquired last year by Lyft, now covers 150 cities in nine European countries.
In Spain, Cabify, based in Madrid, is a popular option. It also has a strong presence in South America.
If you’re looking for a ride in Japan, where ride-hailing platforms face regulatory restrictions, look for Go, which claims an 80 percent share of the taxi dispatch market there.
Across Southeast Asia, locals use Grab to hail cars, motorcycles and scooters. Unlike most other ride-hailing tools, Grab is billed as a “super app” for other services, including digital payments and food delivery.
“When I lived in Bali for five years, Grab organized my entire daily life — breakfast orders, dinner deliveries, grocery shopping, scooter rides to meetings, everything,” Tom Abraham, 45, a digital nomad now living in Spain, said via email.
Other regional standouts include DiDi, a ride-hailing behemoth in China, and Careem in the Middle East.
Find a Place to Eat
Locals in Japan have long relied on Tabélog, the country’s top restaurant review and reservation service, which debuted an English-language app last year.
“Tabélog is the only way to find those 10-seater hidden gems in Shinjuku,” Suzy Jackson, a health care executive from North Carolina, said in an email. Ms. Jackson added that five-star reviews are rare on the platform, where notoriously discerning diners reserve scores above 3.5 stars for “a culinary triumph.”
In Europe, TheFork dominates restaurant reviews and reservations. It’s also popular in Australia and New Zealand and is making inroads in South America.
The messaging and social media app WeChat, which has about 1.4 billion users globally, provides powerful tools to browse and book restaurants and manage ordering, payment and delivery in China.
Other regional contenders include CatchTable in South Korea, Zomato in India, and EatOut in Kenya and other parts of East Africa.
In many countries, messaging a restaurant with WhatsApp or Instagram may prove more fruitful than making a phone call to snag a reservation.
Find Your Way
While Google Maps offers adequate general navigation in many places, experienced travelers say for specific tasks and locations, they prefer other mapping apps.
Dovi Geretz, an executive for the flight price alert service SlickTrip, favors Citymapper for getting around Europe.
Mr. Geretz, 32, of New Jersey, said via email that Citymapper consolidates options for bus, train, bike and foot travel into one intuitive interface and “provides real-time updates on delays, platform changes and other commuting disruptions.”
Japan Travel by Navitime helps navigate Japan’s complex train network, offering real-time updates in English and providing fare information and details like which platform to use.
For navigating China, many travelers turn to the super app AMap Global, which offers English-language support that also covers some indoor locations like shopping malls and train stations. It also handles ride hailing, hotel and ticket booking, dining reviews and food delivery.
Moovit, which gives routing options for buses, trains, ferries and ride hailing in more than 112 countries, has earned praise for its broad global reach, especially in smaller cities and developing countries like Ghana, Madagascar and Vietnam. The app also offers features for blind and low-sight users and search filters for wheelchair-accessible routes.
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