Save Time and Create Fun Trips to Quench Your Thirst for Travel
There are two types of travellers: those who leave everything to chance, and those who optimise their time away by planning what they will do. If you’re the latter, then you should check out these five travel planner apps.
How Your Parents Used to Travel Plan
For many people, planning a trip away is one of the most enjoyable parts of vacationing. In years gone by, when your parents first started travelling and visiting new places, this used to mean relying on travel brochures, guidebooks and maps.
When they arrived at their destination, often the first place they would hunt out was the tourist information office. There they would find a heap more information about local attractions and tourist trips.
All this manual planning took a heap of time – hours, if not days. Then the first day of the vacation was pretty much blown by more planning on the spot. Fortunately, all this hard work is a thing of the past. The digital world has given us the travel planner. Here is our pick of them.
TripAdvisor
Perhaps the ‘Big Daddy’ in the travel planner world, TripAdvisor allows users to leave reviews of attractions, travel options, restaurants, bars, clubs, vacation rentals, hotels and motels, etc. On TripAdvisor, you’ll find all the info you need to plan where to go and stay, and what places to visit when there.
Still better for reviews than for detailed trip planning online, TripAdvisor is a must-visit site when planning a trip.
Visit a City
Avid travellers tend to experience two common problems: where to go when you are at your destination, and how to make the most of the limited time you have. Visit A City helps you overcome these issues.
When you select one of its 3,500 destinations, you’ll find reviews for nearby attractions, tours, visits and activities. You can build your own itinerary, or use one of the site’s recommended itineraries. You’ll receive recommendations based upon your length of stay, and the app clubs nearby attractions together to help you make the most of your time. You’ll receive details of how much time you will spend at each attraction, and the travel time between each, too.
You’ll probably need to do some editing online, because this app doesn’t include break time for coffee or lunch. As with other apps, you can book tours and attraction tickets through this travel planner.
Inspirock
This is a great travel planner for rookies and seasoned pros alike. Inspirock is easy to use, editable, and if you’re not sure where you want to go you can visit the ‘trending destinations’ that its users are visiting or planning trips to.
You can plan a visit to a single destination or multiple destinations – the app will help you by picking the route to travel between each destination.
You’ll love the ‘Day-by-Day’ feature. Plug in the number of days you plan to stay and where, and the app will build an itinerary for you. You can select the type of places you want to visit – hotspots, historic, romantic, etc. – and easily rearrange them. Add or delete attractions, and see how long you have to travel between each, with distances shown. Allow time for lunch and breaks, and plug in your preferred start and finish times for each day.
If you’re travelling with friends, you can share your itinerary to collaborate more effectively. You can pick hotels and places to stay from TripAdvisor or Airbnb on the app, too. Print the itinerary or save it to your smartphone to access online or offline.
TripIt
I’ve included TripIt because it is a great app to create an itinerary for those who still prefer to do all the donkey work of selecting flights, car hire, hotels, attractions and so on themselves. Once you have received your confirmation email, simply forward it to TripIt. The app then adds it automatically to your trip itinerary, and builds your travel calendar for you.
You can forward your itinerary to others, access it offline, and the pro version has extra features such as letting you know about delays and cancellations, and even advice of the best seats on flights. It will also act as a guide between destinations. It’s a great app for frequent business travellers. You may have spent hours planning your trip. Now you can get it organised in one place in minutes.
TripHobo
The great thing about the modern digital world is that you can work almost anywhere. If you are digitally savvy, these apps will be great news for you. So, too, could the incredible job opportunities available in places you’d love to travel to. To learn about the amazing opportunities available in the digital space, contact the Digital Team at Prime Insight. In the digital world, it is the people who make the difference.