Planning the perfect trip can be almost overwhelming enough to take the fun out of what should be an exciting experience. Thankfully, there are many travel planning apps available to help you organize your next getaway, right down to the smallest detail. Here are 10 of the best.
Best for Activity Suggestions: Guides by Lonely Planet
When you have a trip coming up, download the guide for your destination and get a wealth of information about where to go and what to do. Start with the Must See section to find out the top spots. Then check out Tickets & Tours for special experiences and skip-the-line convenience. A Tools section provides transportation advice, need-to-know details, and key phrases to help you get around.
Many ways to search information for each location.
Access is limited without a subscription.
If you’re looking for something specific (such as parks, gardens, or markets), scroll down to Curated Collections. If you still don’t find what you want, search for coffee houses, museums, and more.
Best for Predicting Lowest Flight and Hotel Prices: Hopper
Hopper’s proprietary algorithm tries to predict where flight and lodging prices are headed in the near future, letting you wait until the right moment to spring into action and book your trip at the lowest price. The app analyzes billions of prices per day and claims to predict what the cheapest one will be with a 95% accuracy rate.
The Watch feature sends push notifications about good deals when it’s time to commit.
Some fairly large airlines aren’t included in Hopper’s analysis.
Best Overall Trip Planner: Kayak
One of the top all-in-one apps for setting up a trip, Kayak searches hundreds of travel sites instantly to provide multiple deals on a flight, hotel, or rental car in the same location. Kayak also organizes everything in one place and includes up-to-date details on security wait times, along with airport terminal maps.
The Explore feature helps you decide on a destination, suggesting getaways all over the globe based on your maximum budget.
Doesn’t always show all available flights on a specific route, potentially causing you to miss out on the best deal.
The app also measures your luggage using your phone’s camera, informing you of potential fees and carry-on rules for most airlines.
Best for Helping You Remember the Essentials: Packing Pro
Packing Pro is well worth the $2.99 price if stuffing your suitcases isn’t your favorite pre-trip activity. The app creates customizable packing lists that take into account important factors like the trip duration, destination, expected weather conditions, food preferences, and more. Packing Pro’s robust item catalog ensures that even the most unique dietary or religious restrictions are satisfied.
An impressive group of sample packing lists provides a good starting point if you don’t want to make your own.
In-app purchases are inappropriate for an app you purchased.
Best for Car or RV Trips: Roadtrippers
If dealing with long lines at the airport isn’t your idea of fun, then Roadtrippers may be the app for you. Whether you’re hitting the highway or off-roading it, enter your starting and destination points and let Roadtrippers provide the information you need on everything in between.
The hidden gems that can be discovered with this app.
GPS coordination isn’t as good as it is in apps like Waze.
From campsites and outdoor attractions to unique adventures that are off the beaten path, this app is the perfect companion for planning an excursion no matter if your mode of transportation is a small-sized rental car or a giant RV.
An optional yearly subscription unlocks advanced features, including live traffic monitoring and different map styles.
Best for Finding Bargain Flights: Skiplagged
By showing fares to connecting cities that are sometimes cheaper than a direct flight to that city, Skiplagged lets you book flights where you simply stay at the layover location (your destination) rather than continuing with the connecting flight. When it works, you spend less to end up in your desired destination. Skiplagged also lets you book last-minute hotel deals.
Frequent travelers can save a significant amount of money.
Airline baggage fee policies can be murky, so read the fine print before booking.
Best for Avoiding Hidden Fees: Skyscanner
Skyscanner should be included when you’re looking at some of the bigger all-in-one planning and booking apps. Offering reliable price alerts, integrated frequent flyer miles, and no additional or hidden fees like you might find elsewhere, Skyscanner usually follows through on its promises and is easy to navigate.
Offers protection to ensure car rental providers don’t overcharge for fuel.
In rare instances, flight prices shown in the app are outdated.
Best Itinerary Planner: Sygic Travel
Sygic Travel lets you plan a detailed itinerary for each day of your trip before you leave home, down to the last detail, like walking distances between attractions.
If you don’t want a planned itinerary, Sygic is useful for finding nearby attractions on-the-fly.
Access to Sygic’s offline maps requires a paid upgrade to the Premium version.
With over 50 million places included, many with 360-degree videos that make you feel like you’re there, the app’s smart search filters help you narrow things down to the perfect daily schedule. Collaborative city guides provide an easy-to-use snapshot of the most popular locales around the globe.
Best for Customer Reviews: TripAdvisor
A stalwart in the travel industry, TripAdvisor isn’t unique in providing a one-stop-shop for booking good deals on flights, hotels, and restaurants for your upcoming trip, though it does a dependable job of each. Where the app sets itself apart is with its customer feedback on airlines, lodging, food, and activities. By offering over 500 million opinions from real travelers who’ve been there and done that, TripAdvisor helps you make informed planning decisions based on others’ past experiences.
The forums are a great resource for getting specific travel-related questions answered quickly.
Default rankings don’t always correlate with customer reviews, so you often need to take a deeper dive to discover the best value.
Best for Organizing Confirmations and Reservations: TripIt
When you plan a trip, it’s not uncommon to receive multiple confirmation emails and itineraries from airlines, hotels, rental car companies, or other sources. Keeping all these details organized can be a hassle.
Send information manually, forward confirmation emails, or have the app automatically fetch itineraries from your inbox.
The default notification setting is for an annoying number of alerts.
TripIt solves this problem by taking all your scattered information and organizing it into an easy-to-use main itinerary. This basic functionality is available free of charge, while an annual subscription provides the ability to upgrade your seat on upcoming flights and track reward miles, among other perks.
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