Top Travel Planning Apps: A Comprehensive Review

When it comes to travel planning, having the right app can make all the difference. With a plethora of options available, it's essential to choose wisely. In this article, we'll dive into the features, usability, and pros and cons of some of the top travel planning apps. Let's explore!

1. TripAdvisor

• Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

• User Experience and Learning Curve: TripAdvisor offers a straightforward interface. You can save attractions, restaurants, and more to your trip itinerary. The map is accessible both on mobile and in the browser version. However, the browser map has limitations in size.

• Pros:

  • Simple and clean UI.
  • Easy itinerary creation.
  • Accessible map.

• Cons:

  • Limited formatting options for comments.

Notably TripAdvisor also has support for AI generation, which you can checkout here https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Trips.

Simply enter your destination, dates, and trip will generate an itinerary for you. I entered Tokyo for 3 days, and it generated a decent list. However itineraries are always subjective for each person. It's pretty useful to be able to get a quick glance of the top destinations via 3-4 clicks.

2. Travel Mapper

• Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

• User Experience and Learning Curve: Travel Mapper provides a decent user experience. It allows you to create custom maps, add pins, and organize your trip details. However, the learning curve might be steeper for some users.

• Pros:

  • Customizable maps.
  • Detailed pin placement.
  • Integration with Google Maps.

• Cons:

  • Learning curve for beginners.

3. Wanderlog

• Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

• User Experience and Learning Curve: Wanderlog excels in user experience. It combines planning, collaboration, and customization seamlessly. Whether you're a meticulous planner or a spontaneous adventurer, Wanderlog adapts to your style.

• Features:

  • One-click addition of places from guides.
  • Real-time collaboration with friends.
  • Import flight and hotel reservations.
  • Expense tracking and splitting.
  • Personalized suggestions.
  • Route optimization.

You can plan out where you want to go each day and do it at the same time as all your other trip mates. This makes it super useful for planning trips in pairs or groups.

Yu can also add all your tickets here by sending an email, Wanderlog will then automatically pick it up and add it to your itinerary.

Probably the best user experience amongst all the apps. The free tier is sufficient (can export to pdf for offline) and the features are immense. Here's an example trip I did to japan using wanderlog.

They also have highly rated IOS and android apps.

4. TripIt

• Rating: ⭐

• User Experience and Learning Curve: TripIt focuses on organizing your travel documents. It automatically imports flight and hotel details from your emails. While the UI is functional, it lacks the visual appeal of other apps.

• Pros:

  • Effortless document management.
  • Integration with email.

• Cons:

  • Less visually appealing.

5. Roadtrippers

• Rating: ⭐⭐

• User Experience and Learning Curve: Roadtrippers caters to road trips. It helps you discover attractions along your route. The UI is decent, but some users may find it cluttered.

• Pros:

  • Route discovery.
  • Points of interest.

• Cons:

  • Cluttered interface.

Mainly for road trips, for regular vacations this isn't really the best solution.

6. Microsoft Vaction Planner

This one is a bit different as we're using gen ai to generate an itinerary for us. Sad to say it's not yet at a stage where we can replace tradtional travel planning apps.

• Rating: ⭐⭐

• User Experience and Learning Curve: No UI, only chatting to copilot

• Pros:

  • Route discovery.
  • Points of interest.

• Cons:

  • Quite slow.
  • Many prompts.

The itinerary is given in text format after numerous prompts on the date of travel. This makes it quite cumbersome to use and doesn't really give the ideal results you would want from an travel app.

Conclusion

WanderLog is a great solution for planning your trips and I have been using it for years. You get real time collaboration alongside a slick interface. It also includes IOS/Android apps that is highly rated.

Check them out via google or https://wanderlog.com/ (I'm not affiliated with them in any way)

Here's an example trip I did to japan using wanderlog.