It’s summertime and the living is easy…but what if we told you it could get EASIER? We’ve assembled our top eight seasonally app-ropriate apps that can locate the best hiking trails, find the cheapest gas on your summer road trip, and keep kids’ brains engaged and entertained during the summer months.
Buckle your seatbelts, crank the AC, and get ready to cruise into our Summer App Guide!
1. Grillin’ and chillin’ – GrillTime is the perfect app if you want to grill for your next barbeque and spend time with your guests. With more than 100 different foods to choose from, just select a protein type, thickness of the cut, desired level of doneness, and voila – GrillTime will recommend the perfect time and temperature for your meaty treats!
Price: $1.99
Compatibility: Smartphone, tablet, watch
Category: Food & Drink
2. AllTrails = no fails – AllTrails will direct you to the world’s best hiking, running, and biking trails this summer. Use the app to find local trails, use the GPS tracker to guide your hike, and even save a list of favorite trails-less-travelled. The app includes filters like dog-friendliness, trail length, fitness, and experience level to allow you to seamlessly find the perfect trail!
Price: Free download, paid subscription for Pro
Compatibility: Smartphone, tablet
Category: Health & Fitness
3. Execute the perfect excursion – Roadtrippers offers the ultimate road trip app! Roadtrippers allows you to search your travel route to find awesome pitstops and points of interest, like diners, scenic attractions, hotels, and much more. You can even share your itinerary with friends who can track the trip and add suggestions to make each trip more memorable.
Price: Free download
Compatibility: Smartphone, tablet, web browser
Category: Travel
4.A midsummer night’s prompt – Story Dice is a creative writing tool to keep writer’s block away during sunny summer days. The app uses virtual dice fitted with images, not numbers, to prompt you to create a plot, setting, and characters for stories. Story Dice is perfect to help kiddos practice their creative writing skills when and all year round!
Price: $1.99
Compatibility: Smartphone, tablet
Category: Education
5. Gas-X here – We’ve got you covered for your trip planning – see #3 Roadtrippers – but now you need a place to fill your tank. GasBuddy saves users time and money by using GPS to find the cheapest gas along your travel route. You can also join GasBuddy to save $0.15 per gallon on the first fill-up, and $0.05 per gallon every time after!
Price: Free
Compatibility: Smartphone, tablet
Category: Travel
6. This app doesn’t come with baggage – Everyone loves vacation, but few enjoy the burden of packing. PackPoint Premium is the packing assistant you didn’t know you needed. Plug in trip details – from dates of travel, to events on the itinerary, to travel type – and PackPoint tells you exactly what to bring! PackPoint also saves packing lists, allowing you to easily replicate packing lists from previous trips.
Price: $2.99
Compatibility: Smartphone, tablet
Category: Travel
7. FOMO? More like FRONT ROW – Thanks to an on-demand search feature, band tracking, and concert alerts, Bandsintown makes sure you never miss your favorite artists when they come to town. Buy tickets through the app and invite others to join in the summer fun! The app even recommends bands and artists based on your music library. Sounds like summer!
Price: Free
Compatibility: Smartphone, tablet
Category: Music
8. Color me in – Quiver is an augmented reality coloring book for kids of all ages. For those long car rides or lazy afternoons, you can print coloring pages from quivervision.com, fill the pages with color, and BAM! The Quiver app brings the artwork to life on your smartphone or tablet. To continue the fun, you can interact and play games with the animated characters you’ve colored and created.
Price: Free, in-app purchases available
Compatibility: Smartphone, tablet
Category: Entertainment