Vacation, probably, is one of the things we're expecting the most and preparing to in advance, trying not to forget anything; writing checklists, reading a number of articles about that city, scrupulously absorbing user reviews, picking up the stuff to take with us (you can't forget about your favorite camera), documents, tickets, insurance, you name it.
In all this mess it's so easy to forget anything important. And, even if it couldn't totally spoil your vacation, it can definitely sour it— can you imagine ruining your dream vacation that took you 6 months?
To prevent any unexpected surprises, we've prepared a list of the best travel planner apps in 2020 for you to organize your vacation seamlessly and pretty effortlessly. Our top 14:
- TripAdvisor
- Kiwi.com
- Airbnb
- Packing Pro
- TripIt
- Sygic Travel
- Roadtrippers
- Visit a City
- Rome2rio
- Couchsurfing
- Skyscanner
- Google Trips
- Maps.me
- Hopper
Just keep reading to enjoy your vacation afterward.
Best Vacation Planner Apps
Nowadays there are a lot of different services and apps to plan your trip, to book tickets, to explore local landmarks and Italian restaurants nearby your hotel, to keep all things in one place, to share the lists with your friends, etc. Taking into account all the stuff, we've prepared the list of the 14 best travel planning apps for you in 2020. Let's take a closer look at each of them.
1. TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor is a number one app of the most popular planner apps on most mobile devices while traveling. When you search for a city in the app, you'll get a feed of other users' trips, photos, videos, articles, great places to eat, to visit, etc. Besides that, it is a nice place to book hotels, flight tickets, and find places for shopping.
However, the most valuable thing in TripAdvisor is what people are saying on the whole nine yards: airlines, lodging, food, and other items. If you still have questions left, there are TripAdvisor's forums which are a great resource for getting some specific travel-related information.
2. Kiwi.com
Kiwi.com is another travel app where you can book cheap airline tickets on your mobile device or the web. Often, passengers have found deals that rival any other service out there. Kiwi also offers deals on hotels, taxis, rental cars, parking, and VIP lounge tickets. Upon booking, your boarding passes are emailed to your inbox. It doesn’t get any more convenient than that.
The app also features price alerts and trip notifications plus a guarantee if you miss your connecting flight, you will get booked for free on a new one. Only if the price is more than double, will you pay additional. Kiwi.com finds you deals by booking the cheapest possible route. That might mean two separate flights where you may have a layover and will have to check-in again and go back through customs.
Kiwi.com is a mixed bag with a lot of good feedback and bad. Trustpilot gives them a 74% positive rating, but TripAdvisor shows a lot of unhappy campers. Plus, there are 59 complaints about Kiwi.com with the Better Business Bureau. With any third-party planner app and booking service, you take a chance. It’s a gamble some are willing to make and others aren’t.
OS: Android, iOS, Web
Price: Free but charges a commission per booking.
3. Airbnb
Airbnb connects travelers with people who have rooms, apartments, homes, and other unique accommodation to rent (including trailers, tree houses, and boats). It's an excellent service for you if you prefer a house or an apartment to hotels and you want to get a feel like locals in Paris or Rome.
To stay in Airbnb on your next trip, just visit the website or use the app, enter the location that you’re planning to visit, select check-in and check-out dates, and the number of guests included in the stay.
Apart from rooms and houses to rent, Airbnb suggests camping for a night or even a real medieval castle for a month! You can filter results based on the home type, price, booking method, and facilities.
Airbnb also allows a feature called Trips, which offers Experience to choose during your stay — these are curated events you can partake in with local guides, such as tours, workshops, excursions and dinner parties. In some areas, it can even help you to make a restaurant reservation.
This is the perfect option for an inveterate traveler like you, isn't it?
OS: Android, iOS, web
Price: Free
4. Packing Pro
If you love to travel but hate the planning process, you’re going to love Packing Pro! It is one of the best travel planning apps out there. Packing Pro is simple but effective. It helps you create an unlimited number of packing lists for trips. The lists are sharable via iTunes File Sharing, AirDrop, Dropbox, Box, iCloud, and you can also email and print them.
The app features tons of customization for things like fonts, color, styles, layout options, and more. You can set up a master catalog of items and re-use them across all lists. Packing Pro features support for destinations (international or domestic), temperature (warm, or cold), food preparation (yourself or others), and even how you plan on washing your laundry (machine or by hand). When setting up a trip, you can assign items to each of your travel companions. You can even pack items for your pet!
Packing Pro isn’t the belle of the ball by any means, but it is a stable, useful app to help with trip planning and keep everyone on task.
OS: iOS
Price: $2.99
5. TripIt
TripIt is one of the best apps for iOS and Android for the purpose it serves, namely, travel organization. It's a Swiss Army knife that keeps all your hotel bookings, round trip tickets and the Safari expedition you've been waiting your whole life for.
How useful is that? You just need to create an account, indicate your Home airport and voila! As soon as you book your flights, hotels, car or any other reservation, just forward it to [email protected] and all your bookings will be in one cozy place. A mobile app helps you to have your plans in your hand and get check them on any device.
You can send your plans to the calendar or to your friends, see local transportation options, find places near your hotel and much more. All these are available in a free version of the app, which is quite good for most of us. TripIt Pro (paid version at $49 per year) in addition to free features sends you real-time alerts, helps to find a better seat, check-in reminders and do more other very useful personal-assistant-like stuff.
OS: Android, iOS
Price: Free / $49 per year
6. Sygic Travel
Sygic travel is an inspirational trip planning tool you can use if you don't want to miss any top attraction, or you just want to find some hidden gems in this city to sip Margarita in the shadow and do people watching.
The app allows you to create your daily itinerary by yourself or you can choose a ready-to-go tour with a short description and lovely pictures. All of that at no charge at all, guys. So, if you are passionate about planning every detail of your trip as I am, this great trip planner app is a must on your smartphone.
Pick up your sights and create the most delightful route for a couple of days or even weeks! Just enter the place of arrival and add some points of your interest like museums, restaurants, bars you name it.
Based on your selection and your arrival point, Sygic travel will create your ideal personal tour. You are free to drag and drop, delete, change the order of locations, and invite your friends and family members to plan your perfect unforgettable vacation together.
OS: Android, iOS, web
Price: Free/Offers In-App Purchases
7. Roadtrippers
Roadtrippers is the best trip planning and itinerary app that helps you to create your perfect road trip, discover attractions and useful stops along the way. Just tell Roadtrippers your starting location and destination, dates of travel, and what kind of things you're interested in finding along the way, and this app will plot your journey for you.
It doesn’t just plan out your driving route but also lets you find everything from hotels and museums to restaurants and nightclubs, and other scenic points of interest along the way. When I find a site I like, I just add it to Roadtrippers and it redraws my travel map accordingly.
You can plan out trips in the app or the Roadtrippers web portal, saving locations and stops into a trip plan which you can sync across multiple devices for easy reference. You can also share your route and schedule with family and friends.
OS: Android, iOS
Price: Free
8. Visit a City
Visit a City helps you to solve three common trip planning challenges: grouping nearby attractions together, figuring how far they are and estimating how much time you'll to spend at each of them. The application proposes you to start your trip by enjoyable planning of the details. Choose a destination, and the app will offer you recommended sightseeing guides based on the number of days you have selected.
Besides, you can edit the itinerary by changing the day you plan to visit Colosseum or explore Vatican City, changing the amount of time you spend there or removing the place completely if you have been there before. The app allows you to print your travel guide, download it for offline usage or access it online while you travel. It is the best choice if you don't want to spend half of the trip budget for roaming connection.
If you're busy as a bee and don't have time for big planning, this travel planner allows to book tours through the app and gets general travel information about the destination.
OS: Android, iOS
Price: Free
9. Rome2rio
Planning your trip has never been so easy with Rome2rio. Just enter an address, an attraction, or your destination city and it will immediately present all your travel and booking opportunities, along with information about accommodation and things to do in one convenient app.
Compare plane, train, bus, ferry, rideshare or rental car info, estimate prices, journey duration and booking details from over 5000 companies in more than 160 countries! Download the app and start planning your new journey or make this one much better right now.
OS: Android, iOS, web
Price: Free
10. Couchsurfing
If real local experience, new friends and cheap traveling is your dream, choose Couchsurfing to find a place to stay or share your home and hometown with travelers. It is not just hospitable service, but also a global community of travelers who are looking for new friends from different parts of the world. The platform has a gift economy which means that hosts are not allowed to charge for lodging. But that doesn’t prevent you from taking a few souvenirs from home to make your host a little happier.
If you’re ready to embark on an adventure, choose the city you are planning to visit and browse locals with couches available. Tell your host why you want to meet him or her and be ready to get this unique experience in full.
OS: Android, iOS, web
Price: Free
11. Skyscanner
Skyscanner is an all-in-one travel app for people who travel regularly. This app helps with literally everything related to travelling; you can search, compare, and book cheap flights, hotels, and car rentals anytime and anywhere. Combine low-cost carriers, choose a long transfer time and visit one more city along your way, or choose the fastest flight possible if you need to be in another state or country as soon as possible. The service provides you with enough number of flights to select the most appropriate.
When you book your flight, hotel, and car together you get a more significant discount. So, this app will help you to find a suitable deal in a few seconds and you can keep track of booking and payments without any headache. And last but not least, a huge privilege for you is that the app available in over 30 different languages.
OS: Android, iOS, web
Price: Free
12. Google Trips
A free service from Google available for both Android and iOS that was considered to be the best trip planner app, unfortunately, was shut down by Google in August 2019.
For those who miss the app as we do, Google suggests using Google Trips features in Google Search and Google Maps.
Google Search
If you are a Gmail account user, you'll be happy to know that all your reservations and confirmation details are pulled from Gmail and organized within a separate page, so all your travel information is on hand. To get access to all the info about your saved and/or upcoming trips, just go to google.com/travel and navigate to the "Explore" tab. All your notes from the Google Trips app could be found in your trips at google.com/travel as well.
Alternatively, to find popular places, top attractions, etc. you can just use Google Search to actually search for things to do in your destination.
Google Maps
Using the Google Maps app allows you to save places, to find restaurants and landmarks, do reservations, and search for things to do in a destination.
13. Maps.me
Maps.me is a favorite trip planner among travel enthusiasts. One of the main reasons is the ability to download maps and stay completely offline. The app is open-source, and millions of users contribute to the data and improving the app. Not only does it allow you to plan out your trip via roads, but it also includes bicycle paths, hiking trails, and back roads. When hiking, backpacking, or tackling mountain trails, this feature is essential.
The Maps.me data comes from OpenStreetMap. You can perform detailed searches (by coordinates, names, categories, and addresses) even when you are offline. Some of the more common categories used by Maps.me are Lodging, Shops, Health, Transport, Finance, Food, Business, Education, Entertainment, and Attractions.
Maps.me has been downloaded more than 120 million times. Many serious adventurers consider it to be one of the best travel planning apps on the planet. As a bonus, it also includes travel guides, public transportation, and Uber integrations, as well as a hotel booking feature. If you are looking for a tremendous journey planner, Maps.me could be your new best friend.
OS: Android, iOS
Price: Free
14. Hopper
Hopper is a simple trip planner app that works on both iOS and Android, and it is designed to save you money. Hopper uses a proprietary algorithm to predict the lowest prices on airfare and hotels up to a year in advance. Their website claims they have helped 30 million customers save $1.8 billion so far.
The app has a simple yet appealing design, no frills, and no fuss. They only work with flight travel, so apologies to those traveling by boat, bus, or other methods. The alerts and notifications feature make Hopper a solid trip planner app, keeping an eye out for deals, so you don’t have to.
Where Hopper is lacking is in the search and filtering features. Users have also complained about customer service, and there is a high number of poor reviews online for Hopper. When you go to book your flight, Hopper charges you a commission, which is completely transparent on the payment page. You’ll have to decide for yourself if this one is worth it.
OS: Android, iOS
Price: Free but charges a commission per booking.
Choose any app from the list to cook your journey: book the best tickets, find top accommodations, and create your perfect tour with charming local bars and restaurants on the way. Enjoy your travel!