Summer is here, and that means fun vacation adventures and relaxing getaways to exotic locales. It also means frustration with airline incompetence, stress over driving directions, and stays at hotels that looked amazing on their website but turn out to be, well, not so amazing.

To help you avoid some of that stress and focus more on the fun and relaxing aspects of your summer plans, I scoured the web and the app stores to find the Top 5 must-have, stress-reducing apps for vacationers.

Before I get started, I purposely didn’t include apps for specific hotel chains and airlines. If you’re flying on Hawaiian Airlines and staying at a Hilton and you don’t already have their corporate apps on your phone, then you’re a lost cause and should be sentenced to six months with a flip phone.

Those apps are crucial for getting up-to-the-minute information on gates, delays, and even rebooking if you miss a flight or won’t make your destination in time for check-in. I’m also skipping apps focused on specific destinations or attractions because, well, I’m not sure where you’re going this year or if you like museums or hiking.

Certain travel apps are must-haves these days if you want to avoid many of the hassles that travelers face, particularly outside of Hawaii.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

You should also have — and use — all of the typical apps that you use at home to find restaurants, directions, and general advice. Those include Yelp, Google Maps, Open Table, a weather app, and your entertainment apps of choice (Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, Kindle, etc.) to help you get through flights and their accompanying delays.

OK, with all of that out of the way, here we go:

No. 1: TripIt, Your Travel Assistant

TripIt is a travel organizing and itinerary app that is amazing, and that’s an understatement. TripIt’s Pro app is geared more toward business travelers, but it’s free app gives the leisure traveler everything you’d ever need, and more. In fact, I’ve been using the free app for leisure and business for years, and couldn’t imagine taking any trip without it.

The beauty of TripIt is in how it stores all of your travel details in a single place. You can forward any email receipt to TripIt, or, even better, let TripIt automatically scan your email for travel-related documents. The app magically pulls out all of the relevant information and consolidates it into a single view. Flights, reservations, rental cars, hotels, whatever. Then, it lets you share that itinerary with anyone and even syncs with your online calendar to put everything on your agenda without you having to fumble with time zones.

GateGuru offers a similar app, but is a bit more focused on your airport experience.

No. 2: Kayak, Because Plans Change

There are a ton of travel sites and apps out there, from Travelocity to Expedia to Hipmunk, but I like Kayak over all of those. While all of these types of services are pretty much the same (and, to be honest, I do most of my flight searching via Hipmunk just to get their cool graphical view of flights and layovers, plus their ability to sort by trip “agony”), I like Kayak’s app for its full set of travel features and its built-in flight tracker that lets you know if you or your companion’s flights are on time.

Beyond that, you never know when you’ll need to change your plans, get a rental car when you didn’t expect it, find a new hotel, or cut short your trip and have to find an earlier flight. Having a dedicated travel app can get you through all of those hassles in a jiffy.

Kayak’s app also gives you a TripIt-like view of your travel plans, as well as price alerts and a cool “Explore” option, which helps you find a destination based on temperature or golfing or price.

No. 3: HotelTonight, in Case Your “Luxury” Hotel Isn’t

HotelTonight focuses on one thing: finding you a hotel room for tonight. It’s the perfect solution for those unfortunate times when you check into a hotel expecting a five-star (or even just clean) experience, but immediately think, “Our trip is ruined.”

A few years ago, I took a business trip to Las Vegas and left Honolulu with no hotel reservations. When I landed, I used HotelTonight to book a few hotels over the week-long trip and had a great experience. It was also kind of a fun little adventure, which I wrote about here.

HotelTonight doesn’t give you a ton of choice, but it’s enough. You have one or two selections in each of its price tiers, but it’s enough for you to find a room that’ll work. Some rooms are limited to one night only, while others give you a price for two or more nights. It’s a great solution for when you’re previously booked hotel isn’t up to par, your plans change, or you choose to extend your trip for a few days.

By the way, Kayak and others have similar services, but they don’t seem to offer hotels in as many locations as HotelTonight.

No. 4: Uber, To Get You Where You’re Going

If you’ve never used Uber, think of everything that’s wrong with hailing a cab or traveling by taxi, and then think of the exact opposite as a sort of transportation nirvana. That’s Uber. Well, minus all of its legal troubles. For the consumer, however, Uber is amazing.

If you’re on vacation and don’t have a car, just use the Uber app to see how long it’ll take for an Uber car to pick you up, then get a price for the ride to your destination. Then just tap to hail the car immediately from the app. Uber shows you a photo of your driver, their type of car, and even their license plate number — not to mention their estimated time of arrival at your exact spot. You can even watch their little car icon in real-time driving towards you on a map!

Once you get to your destination, all you do is get out and close the door. No worrying about tips or about having enough cash or if the driver takes credit cards. It all happens on the app.

On the downside, Uber isn’t available everywhere. It’s mostly in bigger cities, including Honolulu, and it does get expensive when you’re outside of the city or during busy times (when Uber enforces their “surge pricing”). For reference, a recent Uber ride from Honolulu International Airport to Hawaii Kai at 9:11 p.m. on a Sunday cost a hefty $80, while a 7:30 am weekday trip across San Francisco cost just under $10.

No. 5: Postagram, for Custom and Instant Postcards

If you’re like me, this is how you send postcards from your vacation: On the very last day of your trip, you’re in the hotel gift shop (or worse, the airport) scrambling to find the right postcards to send to your family. Then you’re scrounging around for a pen and asking every convenience store clerk if they sell stamps. Then you’re trying to remember Aunt Kathy’s zip code.

Well those days are over. Postagram (and others, like Touchnote and Postdroid), enable you to snap a photo on your phone and instantly send it as a postcard to anyone, including your phone’s contact list. You can even add a note to make the recipient jealous of your globetrotting! Best of all, the whole process takes just a few seconds and costs only a buck or so per postcard.

Sure, you can still scramble for those last minute postcards with cheesy photos and captions, or you can take a photo of yourself or your family, choose the exact scene you want, and ship it off to your family and friends in an instant. Now you’re vacationing like it’s 2015, not 1915.

Bonus Apps: Zillow and LoungeBuddy

Zillow is a real estate app that gives you information and prices on homes for sale and estimates on homes not on the market. Why do you need this on your vacation? Because, once you fall in love with your destination, you’re going to want to know how much that vacation condo or home is going to cost you. Zillow gives you those prices and snaps you back into reality in just a few seconds.

LoungeBuddy gives you information on airline lounges at airports, including ratings, reviews, amenities, and prices for admission. If you have a long delay or layover, or if you just want to relax away from the hordes of vacationing families, you might want to pay the $50 or so for one-time access to your airline’s lounge. Or, you might read the review of the Honolulu Airport’s United Airlines lounge, which says that it’s “dirty” and that the “staff (is) not just unfriendly but also not helpful,” and choose to spend your $50 elsewhere. Either way, it’s a great option to have if you’re at an airport for more than a couple of hours.

Have a nice trip!