Planning a trip can be a challenge, especially if you have a complex travel route. Let’s say you want to go to the Lake District in England. How to do it? You need to fly to Leeds, then pick up a car hire Leeds Airport, and reach your destination. It seems to be not difficult, but in fact, you have to do a great job – buy a plane ticket, book a hire car, and find a suitable hotel room.
You can do this in several ways. The first is to browse through numerous car hire, hotel-search, and ticket-booking websites. The second way is to install the travel planning application on your smartphone and organize your trip in just a few minutes.
If you choose the second option, then check out the best travel-planning apps available for Apple- and Android-powered devices today.
TripIt
This is the best service for those who travel a lot and don’t want to keep all the details of the trip in their head. To collect all your reservations and tickets in one place, simply send your booking confirmations from your email. The service will automatically recognize the data and build a route based on it. You can also enter data manually, it’s very easy.
If you are travelling by plane, you just need to enter the name of the airline and the flight number. The program will pull up the rest of the data (arrival/departure time, airports) automatically. Moreover, the app will regularly update your flight information, advise on choosing a seat on the plane, and notify you when check-in is open.
The program can show you the optimal route from the station/airport to your destination by calculating the distance and estimated travel time. The service allows you to plan business meetings, entertainment events, take notes, and much more. You can see data on the map and synchronize it with the calendar.
TripIt provides a very convenient option for loyalty program members: the application stores the data of all accounts and monitors the accrual of bonuses. For this, you need to enter data about your cards and allow synchronization. As a result, you get a detailed plan of your trip, with all the information you need. Now forgetting something is simply impossible!
KAYAK
The popular travel service KAYAK is a real find for those who are going on a trip. It will plan any journey for you, be it a beach vacation or a business trip. Booking flights, hotels, and car hire – all this is available in the application.
Like TripIt, KAYAK supports automatic routing based on booking confirmation vouchers. In the application, you can track the flight status, and also receive notifications about its delay. Information about the world’s airports will also come in handy.
You can plan your leisure travel itinerary right in the app as well. Just add the places and times you want, and linking to maps will happen automatically. The list of things is a great feature to help you remember nothing at home. You can create lists for different types of trips.
Other useful additions include a currency converter and an airline directory with information on luggage surcharges. So, KAYAK can replace several travel applications at once.
TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor is the world’s largest travel app, bringing together real-life reviews from people around the world. Which resort to choose in Barcelona? What is the best hotel to stay in Manchester? Where to go by car in London? Numerous reviews, photos, and ratings will help you find the answers to all your questions.
TripAdvisor isn’t just for trip planning. Once you arrive at a new location, simply launch the application. It will determine your location and suggest a list of nearby leisure activities. Entertainment venues, events, shops, restaurants – you can find anything there. And after visiting the selected place, leave your review for other travellers!
A convenient and simple interface, a huge and constantly updated database of objects with reviews and ratings are the main advantages of the application.
Triposo
This is a travel guide to all popular destinations. It contains brief information about the country/city, provides maps, as well as a database of hotels, restaurants, shops, and sights. Triposo combines information from several sources, including Wikipedia, WikiTravel, WikiGuide, and OpenStreetMap, but works offline. This is its main difference from TripAdvisor.
Triposo will help you decide where to stay, what to see, and what to do in a new place. You can see any object on the map and build a route to it without an Internet connection. In addition, the application makes it possible to choose an excursion or entertainment and immediately book it.
Triposo not only provides information on the sights but also gives you advice on where to go. In this case, the service takes into account the time, weather conditions, etc.
Maps.Me
Maps.Me provides fast and detailed offline maps for mobile devices. Install this app and you will have a great travel guide wherever you go. By the way, Maps.Me is much faster than Google Maps. At the same time, it has excellent details and contains millions of objects, from hotels to ATMs.
These maps don’t need the Internet either to search for a place or to build a route. You no longer need to pay for roaming or search for free Wi-Fi spots. The main thing is to download the required region before the trip.