Siri Is Actually a Great Travel Tool — Here's How She Can Help You Find Parking, Open Your Hotel Room and More
Travel would be so much better if we all had a personal assistant. Well, it turns out we all do. She’s just in our pockets.
If you’ve ever thought Siri would only be useful for the occasional Google search or to call your friends when your hands are full, you’d be surprised to learn that she can do so much more.
Especially when it comes to travel.
If you’re working with iOS12, you can use Siri to figure out your flight time, find your luggage, check the weather, grab parking or even open your hotel door in a matter of seconds.
Some of these shortcuts involve already built-in widgets, while others involve downloading extra apps. But if you panic at the last minute before travel, they’re all worth it.
Check Your Flight
The apps, App In The Air or TripIt will give you your most up-to-date flight status, which means your travel experience will be as smooth as ever. But these app get even better when you set up a custom shortcut using Siri to give you an update by programming her to pull up one of these apps when you simply say, “Hey Siri? Check my flight status.”
Related: This Secret iPhone Hack Will Turn Your Phone Into a Flight Tracker
Find Your Luggage
Losing luggage can be a nightmare on wheels (even if your bag doesn’t have wheels). But you can get your peace of mind if you equip your bag with a Tile device and track it with the Tile app. That’s right. It’s not just for your keys. Plus, you can use Siri to set up a custom demand to track your bag instantly. “Hey Siri? Find my bag.” And presto. If your bag doesn’t reach your final destination, you can enable the Notify When Found feature. Sadly, Siri can’t stay on hold with customer service for you.
Check the Weather
You can easily check the weather using Siri without downloading another app. But if you’d like something a little more customized, there are apps like the snarky Carrot Weather that will give you the report in a particularly sardonic way. And you can use all kinds of commands to get the specific information you need like “current weather,” “extended forecast,” or “rain report” so you have a better sense of whether your flight might be delayed.
Find Parking
Even though Siri can’t drive for you (yet) she can find you some convenient parking when you team her up with the ParkWhiz app. Anywhere in the U.S. or Canada, this app lets you book parking spaces using Apple Pay, and you can set up a custom demand with Siri to find your car or even show you your parking pass without moving your hands away from ten and two.
Open Your Hotel Room
Staying at a Marriott? You’re in luck, because Siri is happy to help you get into your room faster than ever. Check in through the Marriott Rewards app, get notified when your room is ready, and you can use your device to open your door. But if that’s just too much to do with your hands, you can set up a demand with Siri, so you can simply say “Open my door,” and she’ll automatically do it for you. Talk about service.