4 Best Travel Planning Apps With Live Maps to Plot a Trip Itinerary
Since the pandemic, you must carefully arrange your trips. Many things can change quickly, and people are going more frequently, so early bookings are essential. These travel planning applications will help you plan your itinerary and avoid missing out on any events or sites.
All of the applications on our list have maps that display all of the destinations to which you are traveling, and where you can play a slot machine if that’s your favourite game. It’s far superior to utilizing a Google Doc to create your plan. Each app does something unique or better than the others, so you’ll almost certainly find what you’re searching for in a travel planning app.
- Puffin (Web): Find the Best Commute or Route for Your Travel Itinerary
Puffin has a few subtle distinctions. When you start a new journey in Puffin and add a city, it will automatically generate a few recommendations for fascinating and distinctive tourist attractions, which appear as flowers on the map. Then, search for places of interest in the left sidebar when set to Places, and they will appear as pins on the map.
Once you’ve put all of the pins you desire, change the sidebar from Places to Itinerary. Create a new “day” and drag places from the map into it. Puffin will generate a commute for you in the order of the destinations. You can also visit here to find out how it’s optimized for your PC. Rearrange the locations for a more efficient commute. You can also provide a custom color for all of the locations and routes for the day.
To see a thorough view of your complete itinerary, select the “View Full Schedule” option at the top of the sidebar. This will display a kanban board-style overview of all your days. You can easily drag and drop locations across various days.
Puffin trips can also be shared with friends to create a journey together. Other users can remark on any location, allowing you to engage in a conversation within Puffin about whether it is worth visiting or not.
- Travel Trove (Web): Detailed Travel Planner for Multi-City Trips
Travel Trove is a fantastic app if you’re visiting a new country and want to see several cities. First, enter the country you’ll be visiting, followed by the destinations you’d want to see. For example, if you’re heading to Italy, look up the Colosseum and the Leaning Tower of Pisa and include both. Then, in your sidebar, Travel Trove will automatically feature them under the respective cities of Rome and Pisa.
You can include a few notes about each place you add. Travel Trove also automatically gathers information from Google Maps, including the location’s website, hours of operation, and address.
Once you’ve added all of the destinations, switch to itinerary mode. Now you’ll create a day-by-day itinerary for your visit. Each day contains a “accommodation” slot and additional slots for AM and PM to organize your vacation. Simply drag and drop your locations into these spaces to create the plan. You can also make notes for each day.
Travel Trove allows you to rapidly filter places by categories you specify when adding them, such as must-see, dining, and lodging. You may also include Packing Notes in your schedule to ensure you don’t forget anything. Once you’ve completed the vacation itinerary, you can share it with others.
- Plip (Web, Android, iOS): Mobile-First Collaborative Trip Planner With Maps
The apps listed above are all designed to be used on desktops. However, Plip defies the trend by being a mobile-first travel planning application that allows you to arrange your complete trip on your phone or tablet. Plip also offers a web app that you may use on your laptop.
Create an account when you start a new trip; otherwise, your travels will not be recorded. You can keep the journey private or share it with others by including their email addresses.
When adding a new entry, you can select from eight categories of plans: plan (generic), flight, reservation, lodging, restaurant, event, vehicle rental, and transit. The default details to fill out for any entry are the title, location, start and end dates and times, and any remarks that are required. Certain plans have additional entries, such as “Provider” in events and “Confirmation number” in lodgings.
You can rapidly filter your entries by plan type to view them in a list. Otherwise, go to the Map view to see all of your marked points of interest, then scroll through the pane at the bottom.
- Scout (Web): Best Travel Planner for Cities With Detailed Map (teamfatkids.com)
When you plan a trip to a new city, whether alone or with a group, you normally make a list of things you wish to see. Scout allows you to organize them into parts and view them on a live map, making it easy to determine which places are nearby and plan an itinerary.
When you start a new journey in Scout, you must first choose a city to visit and set your arrival and departure dates. By default, you will see sections for attractions, food, and accommodations. However, you can always create more custom sections. Each area is assigned a color-coded pin identifier. You can add a location by searching for it or putting in the complete address. It’s powered by Google Maps, so you can easily find any location.
You can also share your Scout trip with others, allowing them to add their points of interest and alter the schedule to form a communal plan. It’s also a great method to gather recommendations from locals, as they can add them directly to your map.
Scout also allows you to upload your map or itinerary to its directory so that others can find your useful ideas. Of course, you can explore the directory to see what others have recommended.