There’s something comforting about the moment when your phone switches time zones without you noticing. You glance down expecting one reality and find another—a small technological kindness that makes crossing invisible lines feel less disorienting.
My life is spread across three countries—I live in the United States, my company calls Canada home, and I attend school in France. My phone has become less a device than a passport that negotiates the spaces between my lives.
I’m writing this from Interstate 40, pulled over at a rest stop that could be in Tennessee or Arkansas—the kind of place that exists for the purpose of existing, where the vending machines hum and the soap dispensers work half the time. I’ve been driving across the US for the past several days, and it strikes me just how much phones have changed our relationship with travel.
The apps we depend on aren’t just tools; they’re companions. They remember our preferences, anticipate our needs, sometimes know us better than we know ourselves. The VPN that protects you on open Wi-Fi networks. The translation app that is at the ready when you browse menus in a foreign city. The weather widget that shows not just today’s forecast, but what you’ll need to pack for next week ahead.
Travel Smarter with Android, presented by Surfshark, explores how smartphones and mobile apps have revolutionized the way we move about the world. From outdoor adventures that require nothing more than a charged phone to hidden Android features that turn travel friction into flow—we examine the tools that have quietly made the unfamiliar feel manageable, one notification at a time.
