How many times have you traveled with your family and been unable to find a way to make your children, tired of being in the car for too many hours, stop crying? How many of us, after closing the house, loading suitcases, and leaving, are all of a sudden assailed by the terrible doubt of having left something important behind? Never before like in these occasions can technology truly enhance family life. It doesn’t take much: a small click on the right software, a second of patience for the download to complete and voilà! You can leave peacefully and enjoy your vacation. Familyandmedia has chosen the 10 best apps for you for every situation and need when you are traveling with family. Ready to download?
1. My Happy Farm
Is the trip too long and kids in the car starting to get bored? Have you tried everything? Never give up! My Happy Farm is coming to the rescue. It is an application created to involve young children in a multimedia story that is simple and fun. The images, made by hand like in a book, will bring children inside a farm where they can read or listen to a story, interact with animals, and play little games.
2. Life 360
Downloadable directly from the website www.life360.com. It is a very intelligent app that allows you to always remain in contact with your loved ones through smartphone. It is mostly useful when you are on vacation with the whole family, with the risk of getting lost among crowds, or when you don’t know where to set an appointment in case you are separated. The GPS will allow you to locate your cell phones, monitoring your positions with extreme precision. The application also has an anti-panic button that sends messages to the whole family or to emergency services. With Life 360 your vacations will be calmer, and it will be impossible to get lost!
3. Packing Pro
Finally your very own personal luggage assistant, better than any butler. Despite your impeccable organization and meticulous luggage preparation, in the end something important is always forgotten. Here is the app that will save you from the ugly surprise, once you are far from home, of having forgotten the game that your children love and stay calm with, or the charger for your laptop that you need to work… Packing Pro is the app that remembers everything and suggests what to bring for every family member. It is possible to prepare both standardized lists fitted to any type of journey, and personalized lists according to occasion.
4. Playground Around the Corner
Do you take long trips with children by car and not know how to make them play? This is the app for you: Playground Around the Corner allows you to find the playground closest to you. You can easily see maps, pictures, and read descriptions of public parks that are found along your route and comfortably choose the nearest one. Further, by reading reports and comments from other users, you can better orient your choice. There is also the option to enter playgrounds that have not been reviewed and leave your own comments. The app is free, and is available from the site www.playgroundaroundthecorner.it, also in English.
5. Games for Children
Games for Children is the official application, in Italian, of the website bearing the same name, www.giochibambini.it. It is possible to download for free a series of games that is continually updated, for both boys and girls. Not only that, you will also find lots of educational material and tutorial videos for making pictures and crafts. You can further save your favorite games so they are always available. It is the perfect app for entertaining children during a trip, or even on rainy days in the hotel room.
6. Pili Pop English
Directly from the website www.pilipop.com, this is an app designed to help children learn English in a playful way that isn’t boring. Pili Pop guides young children to knowledge of the language through games that are both intuitive and fun. Immersed in a universe entirely in English, children will be at the center of a journey where, in order to interact, they have to use English words and expressions. The app is available for seven days as a free trial.
7. Morena the Whale with a Full Belly
Do you remember when you were small and your grandmother would tell you stories to make you fall asleep? Have you forgotten them and left without a book in hand? Don’t worry. Coming to you from the website www.labalenapanciapiena.it is an educational app for children that lets you read tons of stories and tales together while on vacation. It is enough to download the e-books dedicated to children on your smartphone or tablet and the magic begins. One of the many stories is called Morena the Whale with a Full Tummy, with sound and animation, available also through Apple Store in more than ten languages. It isn’t to be missed—but rather to be read!
8. Ed Emberly’s Shake & Make
A fun filled app that lets you draw just like in the books of Ed Emberly, when you can’t bring paper and markers with you. The game is a puzzle; just look at the picture and shake your cell phone. It will break into tiny pieces on your screen, and you will have to put the original picture back together with your finger in less than a minute. Are you up to the challenge?
9. Find My Medicine
Are you traveling abroad and your child has a fever? Or perhaps he is sick with a horrible stomach ache? Are you lacking the medicine that you typically use and don’t know where to find it in the country you are traveling in? Don’t panic. Consult Find My Medicine , a very useful app that needs to be kept on your smartphone. With a few clicks, you can find the corresponding name of your medicine in the country you are currently in. Small ailments will no longer be a problem. The current version covers seven countries (USA, Spain, Germany, England, Italy, France, and Poland), but is constantly being updated, with more than 6,500 medicines already!
10. New Friends! Farm Animals
New Friends! Farm Animals is a useful app for young kids to have fun by teaching them to recognize various animal sounds. The app is composed of small puzzles. In one of them, you must move animals with your finger and place them in the correct template carved out of the farm design. There are other types of mini games as well, where a child must match animals together according to certain rules and not make a mistake. In this way, during the breaks in your trip you can manage to pull a smile from your children and keep them happy for the rest of the journey. Have fun!
