Over a recent couple of years, augmented reality has progressed significantly in smartphone technology. It has become a powerful tool for companies and marketers, letting them change how individuals view their environment.
According to recent estimates, 1.7 billion mobile augmented reality (AR) consumer devices will be present worldwide by 2024, which is expected to rise from 1.1 billion AR users.
Augmented reality has grown in popularity over the past few years within the travel sector. AR enhances real-world visuals viewed on a mobile device with digital layers of information, giving consumers a more thorough understanding of their environment.
Travel apps based on AR can easily draw users in with their interaction and immersive experiences. The future of AR in travel applications appears bright, with enormous potential to revolutionize the tourism industry.
Let’s highlight and discuss the best 10 AR travel applications you should try in 2022.
10 Augmented Reality Travel Apps to Try in 2022
1. Smartify
With the Smartifiy application, you can quickly identify art work and obtain relevant information. Smartify can be downloaded for free on any smartphone.
The Wallace Collection in London, The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Louvre in Paris, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York all use Smartify. The app offers users recorded conversations with the artist as well as comprehensive information about the artwork they are viewing. The intention is to provide a more engaging narrative as opposed to the dry information found in most audio tours and catalogs.
Learn more about Smartify here.
2. AR City
AR City is a long-awaited application. It has long been an ambition to be able to show directional arrows heading to your location onto the windscreen of your vehicle or a set of wearable AR glasses.
With the help of Blippar’s AR City app, you can explore and traverse more than 300+ cities all around the world. AR City layers 3D views of your environment on top of a real-world perspective as you move toward your location. Augmented map content, which includes street names, structure names, and other relevant places of interest, can give you more details about the surroundings around you in some larger metropolitan areas and towns.
Learn more about AR City here.
3. Horizon Explorer
Horizon Explorer describes what you are looking at while displaying the horizon and surrounding skyline. All you need is to aim your camera toward a hill, hamlet, pond, or another landmark, and Horizon Explorer will identify it, show you a map, and provide details on the location. The labels and positioning are significantly more stable thanks to ARKit technology than was previously feasible.
When you are flying high, you can look down at the landscape below you to get a sense of what lies beyond the nearby hills. In order to see what lies behind hills, you may also view the scale-model 3D map.
Learn more about Horizon Explorer here.
4. World Around Me
World Around Me (WAM) is the ideal resource for visitors, locals, and travelers who wish to learn everything there is to know about their surroundings. Feel at home anywhere in the globe by exploring places like restaurants, gyms, hospitals, etc., simply by waving your smartphone around you! Allow WAM to guide you on an entertaining tour of your neighborhood.
Modern AR technology is combined with a smooth, liquid interface in WAM to provide exciting and helpful information to every location you visit. It gives you a fresh viewpoint that allows you to view the surroundings with a seamless and simple AR perspective. WAM also displays place names, ratings, and distance. With just one tap, you can access business ratings, contact information, and hours.
Learn more about World Around Me here.
5. HoloMaps
Holomaps is the first virtual reality and AR program that allows users to navigate through a holographic simulation while displaying real information.
The HoloMaps Store Version incorporates Bing 3D with more than 200 towns and landmarks. HoloMaps can be used both locally and remotely, individually or in collaboration, with coworkers and clients. Contextually pertinent information is added to the map through the integration of data sources. This is demonstrated using Twitter, real traffic, and the HoloMaps Store Edition.
Learn more about HoloMaps here.
6. Bus Time London
If you don’t know the paths, bus timetables, and closest stops between your accommodation and your goal, traveling within a new city can be difficult. Bus Time London is an augmented reality travel software that simplifies traversing London’s streets.
The app, which incorporates augmented reality, uses a phone’s camera and GPS position to assist travelers to identify the closest bus stop to where they are. You can plan trips to one or more locations in addition to viewing bus schedules. The app also uses AR technology to display directions on top of actual streets and identify bus stations nearby to ensure that you never get lost.
Learn more about Bus Time London here.
7. CityGuyd
Through the innovative use of Augmented Reality (AR) technologies, CityGuyd offers tourists a more convenient, cheap, and engaging tour-guide experience.
You only get information depending on your location. The software offers the convenience of one app with all the information found in a trip guidebook.
Learn more about CityGuyd here.
8. Wikitude World Browser
Activate the app and position your phone’s camera in any broad direction to activate Wikitude. Structures, monuments, or other items in your camera’s field of vision that have Wikipedia or Qype data available will show up with a marking that contains that object’s details. In addition, you can use Google Map-based data to locate more than millions of points of interest.
You may also utilize a “Screen Capture” feature to capture a snapshot of your AR screen and store it for future use or share it with a friend. The program includes over 100 million points of interest from around the globe.
Select your area and the range from it that you are eager to see data from and determine whether you want to search information for “your area” or a limited location. This is a terrific application that may complement your well-planned excursions by giving you more places to visit and things to see during your downtime.
Learn more about Wikitude World Browser here.
9. Viewranger
Viewranger is a mapping and hiking app with some fantastic features, including downloadable maps. It might be a terrific addition to your outdoor excursions if you can figure out how to use it and are willing to spend some money.
While the map and linked routes features are simple to use, as a viable alternative to other navigation or GPS tracking applications, ViewRanger is an excellent program. The option to download maps for offline use is the largest benefit.
Learn more about Viewranger here.
10. Senditur
Senditur is made to be your traveling companion, someone you can ask for advice when you’re in a bind. The app’s huge database will assist you in learning about the towns, cities, temples, castles, and museums that are all around you. As long as the device includes a GPS sensor, its primary function can be performed without internet access or mobile storage.
You can quickly recognize various locations nearby with the use of augmented reality technology. You can always choose what you want to see because the app lets you filter the listings by category and distance.
Learn more about Senditur here.
Conclusion
It’s impossible to overstate the value of AR in the travel and tourism sector. The potential of AR is so great that it may even open up entirely new business prospects for you. Even though the travel industry has AR-based apps to assist you, the number remains small. With daily research and advancement in the AR industry, AR tourism will be blessed with more AR apps in the coming times.