There's pretty much an app for everything these days, especially when it comes to travelling. Even the holy city of Jerusalem has high tech options of navigating the city, seeing the sights and generally getting to know what is one of the world's oldest cities. So for those looking to take a trip to Jerusalem, here are some handy apps to help get around the city.
Jerusalem Travel Guide
creativecommons.com/Sebastian Wallroth
The Jerusalem Travel Guide app is a 100 percent offline application that highlights all of the must see sights around the city as well as where to find places to nosh and relax. The app features augmented reality that allows visitors to discover the city from the tips of their fingers, as well as see where they are going before they get there. For those not interested in augmented reality, it also hosts offline maps with GPS capabilities so that visitors can navigate themselves around the city and to the app's best rated restaurants, pubs, hotels and other attractions. It also provides in-depth information on all the best religious and historical sites around the city, including the Dome of the Rock, the Tomb of Zechariah, Mary's Tomb, the Damascus Gate and the legendary West Wall. This app is available for $2.99 on the app store for Android and iPhone devices.
He-En Dictionary App
creativecommons.com/Joe Goldberg
While visitors to Jerusalem can find a lot of languages spoken throughout the city, there will be more than a few places around town where shopkeepers or waiters only speak Hebrew or at very least some badly broken English. You can try to avoid it, but making an attempt to know the language is a sign of respect for the culture. For those that need to know how to ask for something in Hebrew, the He-En Dictionary app can help. This app hosts over 240,000 word pairs translated from Hebrew to English. The search function allows users to look up words in English and the app spits out its Hebrew translation. It also has a speech translator for the spoken word. This helpful app is available for free on the app store for Android and iPhone devices.
The Old City of Jerusalem Audio Walking Tours
creativecommons.com/David Weekly
The Old City of Jerusalem Audio Walking Tours app is a guide for the independent tourist. It is an app for the tourist that wants to see the city their way and doesn't want some person to guide them around it. The audio tours within the guide take visitors through the Old City of Jerusalem in what has been the centre of religious and spiritual worship for thousands of years. Through the 15 different tours and app users can explore the churches, synagogues, masques and historical points of interest around them. All of the tours help users navigate the city and around the streets with accurate directions to help them find the desired sights along the tour, as well as providing a GPS capable map for those who need to see the directions visually. On the way to the site, the app will give information on the places they are walking past and give an informative speech once at the site in question. This app is available for free on the app store for Android and iPhone devices.
NetBus
creativecommons.com/zeevveez
The best way to get around Jerusalem and Israel as a whole is to take the bus. However, for a long while there was a sad lack of bus apps in the city. Visitors who wanted to take the bus had to sort out what route they needed to take, and then wait for an extra long period because the buses in the city never arrived on time. However in 2012, four ex-Israeli army soldiers decided to solve that with their NetBus app. This app keeps track of every bus in Israel via their GPS signal. Through the app interface, visitors can pick a location and have the app tell them what bus route they need to take and when to change buses. Visitors can also track their bus around the city to know when they need to leave the cafe and go stand at the bus stop instead of just sitting there waiting for a solid 20 minutes on a late bus wondering if they have missed it the whole time. This app works not just in Jerusalem, but in every city in Israel and in between, it is definitely a must-have for travel. The app is available for free on the app store for Android and iPhone devices.
English Israel News
Being read-up on current events keep visitors safe and helps them avoid areas where security is tight. There are quite a few news apps for Israel, but many of them are not in English. Like the name suggests, the English Israel News brings visitors to the country the current events, updated hourly, in English. It is separated into the categories such as Top News, Breaking News, Arts and Leisure and Politics that are scraped together from 30 Israeli news sources. The app is available for $0.99 on the app store for Android and iPhone devices.
Jerusalem Guide
creativecommons.com/Emmanuel DYAN
Jerusalem is a big city and full of sites to see. For those not interested in the augmented reality of the aforementioned Jerusalem Travel Guide, the similarly simply named Jerusalem Guide is one of the best guides around the city in terms of the historical, spiritual and religious sites. Here, all the attractions within the city are shown on the map, but because there are so many, visitors will want to use their GPS to locate themselves and find a smaller area to work with. However, for those that have a particular site in mind, they can search for it or locate it on a very long list of alphabetically sorted attractions. Once selected, not only are app users given the important phone numbers and the address, but it is shown on the map and a brief description is given alongside a photo of the establishment. This app is available for free on the app store for Android and iPhone devices.