As the summer vacation is coming up and families will be spending lots of time together. Some family members are planning to travel around as well. During this break, for most of them their smartphone is the tool of choice for staying in touch with their family and entertainment.

But which apps will kids actually enjoy? Which are useful to parents? And which ones can the whole family use productively? Which app can work a family support system to inspire and engage the whole family? Here are 10 must have apps for your family based on their application in real life.

#1 Health & Wellness Motivation App – CircleCare

Android | iOS

Want to motivate your family to stay healthy? Want to share precious family moments privately on every step of the way? CircleCare got you covered! CircleCare is a perfect health and wellness App to build a private support network for families, where you can share, care and inspire your loved ones to stay healthy. It has got useful features like family locator, medication reminder, step counter and blood pressure & sugar record keeping system. Once you add your whole family on the app, you can motivate them to follow healthy lifestyle and get the peace of mind by knowing that they are active and in good health.

#2 PHOTOS/MEMORIES – Flickr

Android | iOS

Planning to capture a lots of snaps during the holidays from your smartphone, but running out of space? Don’t worry, because Flickr got you covered. Flickr app gives a gigantic 1,000GB of photo-storage space on their cloud for free!! You can also access it from your home PC, which is handy if you’re using multiple smartphone devices to capture photos.

#3 For Family Entertainment/Movies – Netflix

Android | iOS

One of the biggest movie streaming services online. Although you might not find some of the newer ones, but there is already a good amount in stock. From a smartphone app, you can stream it onto any HD television. You can also add “profiles” to your Netflix account so each family member gets a separate My List, Recommendations, and Viewing History.

#4 Parental Control – Kids Place & OurPact

Android | iOS

One of the main concerns for kids and smartphone is coming across pornography or violent content. Kids Place – Parental Control app is probably the best solution out there on android. For iOS devices OurPact is a good alternative. Both of these apps allows the parents to set specific app for the kids to access and safeguard their private data. The app can also disable some function like calls, SMS or downloading new apps temporarily.

#5 Health Advice/Symptom Checker – WebMD

Android | iOS

WebMD is now the second most visited health website in the world. Before you enter the app you should know that it’s a double edged sword. That said, WebMD is probably the best single app for quickly checking symptoms & nutritional information. In cases where it’s not really an emergency and medical help is not around WebMD can be give the parents temporary piece of mind.

#6 Location Based Service – Yelp

Android | iOS

Looking for a local business in your area for some household maintenance work? Yelp app is there for your rescue. In yelp you can not only find the local service providers around you, you can also look at the reviews provided by the customers who used their service before and choose the most efficient candidate to get the job done. How big is their database? Imagine you are traveling with a five year old and all of a sudden he needs to use the toilet, just search with the term “bathroom”. Instantly it will show you the nearest options using its location service.

#7 Holiday Assistant – Trip Advisor

Android | iOS

Want to save the cost of hiring a local tour guide and spend the money on your shopping for kids? Download Trip Advisor app.  It’s one of the most useful travel review app around. With it you can find the nearest tourist attractions, restaurants and check out real reviews.

#8 Family Schedule Manager – Cozi Family Organizer

Android | iOS

Sometimes keeping your family’s schedule straight can feel impossible. Download Cozi Family Organizer to help get everyone organized. This App is especially beneficial for busy families. It consolidates your whole family’s calendar, to-dos and shopping lists in one place, so that there is no overlap between two of them.

#9 Family Locator App – Life360

Android | iOS

For parent who want to keep tab on their children’s whereabouts when they are not at home or in transit, Life360 is the perfect solution. It shows family members location on real time and whenever someone arrives at their destination, it notifies their family members. The app also has a panic button, which can be really handy in case of an emergency to alert family members for help.

#10 Baby Names – Baby Names

Android | iOS

Expecting your first child? Can’t decide on a name? Get Baby Names App. Because it is by far the coolest little app you could hope for. It is more thorough than any other naming app by quite some distance, even compiling data on what names are most popular among engineers — and movie stars — so you can search by something as random as possible!

All the apps mentioned here have plenty of alternatives as well on the app store and play store. So, if one of them does not satisfy your requirement for some reason, go ahead and try the alternatives. After all, when it comes down to your family, you should not take any chances.

Have I missed anything? Please let me know in the comments so that I can add that to my future update.