hi in this video we're diving into the topic of travel planning apps there are a lot of options out there but we filtered out the most popular ones and tried them all so you don't have to we'll take a look at Trip Advisor travel mapper wlog tripet and Road Trippers specifically we'll go over each app based on the following user experience and learning curve features and capability price and finish off with the pros and cons of each app keep in mind this video will be from the perspective of travel planning navigating during your trip and documenting important information before and after the trip all of the apps mentioned do these things to various degrees what we won't go over are aspects like scrapbooking your travels getting deals on flights and hotels or social media related features also whenever applicable I'll use a rating system of 1 to five with five being great and one being poor to characterize certain aspects of each app with that context in mind let's get started first let's talk about each app's user experience and learning curve we all know Trip Advisor is a travel platform that provides reviews and ratings for places and things to do it also allows us to compare prices make bookings and act as a forum for advice and experiences lesser known as a travel planner that trip advisor provides for its users it is by far the most simple user interface out of the five apps presented in this video you can save attractions things to do restaurants and more to your trip by clicking one of the categories looking for something fun and interesting clicking the heart icon and selecting the trip you want to add that thing to then to add them to a specific day go to your trip itinerary click on the add button and select the things you want to add to that specific day Additionally you can add comments to each item that you've added as simple unformatted text you can also make notes that are independent from places in your itinerary make sure you're in the saves Tab and click more and then click create a note once you're done with that you can add it to your itinerary by clicking itinerary find the day you want to add it to and click the add button and then select the note you want to add for that [Music] day here's some footage of the mobile version of the app tap the plus icon to save something to this trip then you can add it to your itinerary by tapping add today here's a look at the map and as you cycle through your itinerary the items will be highlighted on the map in both the mobile and browser versions the UI is clean uncluttered and fast if you need a highle general itinerary which can be viewable on your phone or computer the trip Tri advisor app will work for you because it is so simple and clean I'm giving Trip Advisor user experience and learning curve rating a 5 out of five next let's take a look at Travel mapper Travel mapper is the most popular and highest rated travel planning app that works with Google Sheets if you're familiar with Google Sheets or spreadsheets in general learning to use travel mapper will be extremely easy travel mapper automatically creates three sheets in your file that are designed to be an itinerary a checklist for todos and things to bring and and a sheet to record and split expenses there are two main components to the travel mapper interface and the first one is this sidebar that houses the map next to the spreadsheet here you can view where places are filter out your itinerary by day and plot things on the map while automatically filling it out in the spreadsheet you can do that by clicking the ad place button typing in a location and then clicking save the second main component of travel mapper is a popup that shows when you click edit trip this popup gives more space to edit organize and plan your itinerary with its various tools you can drag and drop to reorder your itinerary and edit information directly in these cards you can see our itinerary in a much larger map with the same filtering capabilities as in the sidebar you can also view an email friendly summary and also export your itinerary to Google Maps travel mapper is mainly a web- based app and is meant to be used on your laptop therefore most of the planning is done in your browser however you can use Google Maps on your phone to view your exported itinerary once you've exported it open up Google Maps tap saved then tap maps and select the itinerary you exported now you can see all of the locations and navigate to them while you're on your trip if you're not familiar with Google Sheets though some of the aspects of the UI may be harder to find and it may take some time getting used to there's a steeper learning curve to it as well compared to Trip Advisor because of these Reasons I'm reading travel mappers user experience and learning curve a solid three out of five the third app is wonderand log and it's a good overall planner with lots of features you can do detailed planning and works with the browser and your mobile phone the mobile app despite the limited space packs a bunch of functionality and you can do everything on it as you can do in the browser you can see a map with all your activities and placees pin to it with colorcoded markers [Music] the app also suggests things to do and places to see directly in the app without having to leave it however I do think the mobile app does seem a little bit cluttered and any serious planning will need to be done in the browser where there's much more real estate this is the user interface of the browser version of the app you can explore places and things to do add reservations and other attachments view your budget add customized notes and reminders and see recommendations and places to add to your itinerary here's your itinerary you can move items around and you can add notes between items with this plus icon on the right side here you can see a detailed map you can filter the map by clicking this icon and then select what you want to see from your itinerary similar to travel mapper the trade-off between Simplicity in the UI and functionality is apparent as a result wlog can take some time getting used to and it's just a little cluttered for me but because of its speed and decent user interface I'm going to rate wander log's user experience and learning curve a four out of five the next app we'll be looking at is tripet tripet is similar to werog in that it is a decent overall travel planner and you can get pretty detailed planning done as well it has both mobile and web apps and recently the web app thankfully got a UI upgrade making it much more user friendly and pleasing to the eye clicking into your trip will allow you to see your itinerary in chronological order all the information is laid out cleanly and simply with no more buttons or icons than necessary to add a new item to your itinerary just click the add a plan button you can select from a variety of plans and each have their own customized inputs let's choose an activity here are all the fields that you can enter information into you can add a title the start date the end date the start time and end time and then automatically search for the address of the place if there isn't enough detail you can choose to add a note as well this will capture any information that other plans don't or if there are no input fields for here is some footage of the mobile app I would say that the mobile app is as good as the browser version despite working with a smaller area you can do all the same things in your phone as you can do in the browser the only nitpick I have of tripet is that you can't reorder the items in your itinerary easily unlike the other apps where you can drag and drop to change your itinerary you can't do that with tripet overall tripet is super easy to use and learn and has a great UI except for that reordering issue I give it a 4.5 out of 5 for user experience and learning curve the last app we'll be looking at is Road Trippers it's slightly different from the other apps because it is focused on road trips you can do decently detailed planning and the items you add to your itinerary are referred to as waypoints the browser version predominantly shows the map and the route that your road trip will take the information shown is just enough to give you a good idea of what it is but not enough to overwhelm you with the data here is your itinerary and it is made up of your way points you can click into each way point to fill out more details like your arrival date budget notes and more at the top here you can look for places and things to do from a variety of categories spanning sites campgrounds gas stations overnight parking and more selecting a category will show all the places on the map Click on each place to read all about it the mobile app interface is just a bit busy but has all the functionality of the browser version as well here's your itinerary tap into a waypoint to edit its information to see your trip on the map tap load trip on map you can cycle through your itinerary waypoints at the bottom here if you use a search bar and select a category Road Trippers will bring up all the locations that match that filter along your route this makes it super easy to check out stuff along the way as well as make plans beforehand the overall rating I'm giving for Road Trippers user experience and learn curve is a 4.5 out of five now let's talk about each app's features and capability this section should answer questions like how well does the app help me plan how many powerful features are there does it save me time how well does it keep me organized I'll briefly expand on each app's map utility how good their suggestions and recommendations tools are how well they organize information Automation and collaboration Trip Advisor has a vast collection of all travel related activities points of interest tourist attractions since that's the business they're in you'll be able to search for these things based on location this is something they do very well however their map utility is below average and is limited in size you can only see your saved items on the map after you've saved it into your itinerary this makes it difficult to plan things around each other also you can't plot custom locations on the map like airports or airbnbs you can only plot items from their database as for collaboration you can easily invite people to view your itinerary with a link but your friends will need to sign up to Trip Advisor to edit the trip overall I rate Trip Advisor a 2.5 out of 5 for its features and capability travel mapper is very capable in many aspects of travel planning organize your information with hyperlinks to web pages or YouTube videos add detailed notes color code and categorize your itinerary and make a detailed budget the map is much less restrictive than trip advisors the map can be maximize to utilize as much space as possible and they can be filtered by day and category automation with travel mapper also saves you a lot of time for almost any location you can think of travel mapper will automatically find the address and plot it on the map as long as you have the place's name no need to copy and paste taking it a step further travel mapper will generate Google Map links for you to navigate to with one tap on your phone while on your trip also you can export your itinerary to Google Maps and see all the locations in your Google Maps app directly on your phone this also helps you navigate on your trip sharing is easy as you can email a well formatted itinerary summary to anyone and collaborate with others just using Google Sheets sharing function your friends just need a Google account travel mappers capabilities are very powerful so I'm rating it a five out of five wlog is also very capable the best feature they have is their recommendation and research tools they provide relevant suggestions for individual activities places to see restaurants Etc directly in the map as well as in the itinerary they also suggest things from YouTube and Tik Tok to give you more context in your planning the map is also designed well and you can filter the markers to show your itinerary by day they are also colorcoded and the information is nicely displayed the automation offered by wand log is also very good it will automatically scan your Gmail and import relevant items to your itinerary it will optimize routes for you so that your itinerary items are clustered together for more efficient traveling it can also export your itinerary to Google Maps but the last time I used this feature it was slightly buggy and did not work every time finally sharing is easy but requires your friends to also have wandl in order to edit the trip for these Reasons I'm rating wlog a solid 4.5 out of five tripet capabilities are somewhat limited it doesn't have a map that shows all the places in your itinerary at once it doesn't have much automation capabilities aside from getting the address of a location it doesn't have any recommendations in the app either the best feature of tripet is its ability to organize detailed information ranging from what type of quisine a restaurant serves to the email address of a specific point of contact another good feature is that you can export your itinerary to your calendar using aics file as for helping you navigate on the trip tripet does have features to alert you about travel updates like terminal changes flight delays Etc provides you with airport maps and generally guides you to where you need to go this is something that tripet does that stands out from the other apps however in my opinion it's not really worth it unless you completely new to traveling overall I rate tripet a three out of five for features and capability finally Road Trippers Road Trippers recommendation engine is very good they have blog like guide similar to wlog and can find the best places to visit near your route directly on the map a lot of the relevant information is there and it is easy to digest Road Trippers map has a very cool feature that suggests places along the route of your road trip within a certain specifi radius if you select locations on the map the map will reroute your trip to include it automatically the map is comprehens expensive and you can see your entire itinerary on the map as well another cool feature is that Ro Troopers will estimate how much gas will cost you you can organize your itinerary with decent detail by adding notes arrival date links and more but it lacks categorization and color coding overall Road trier's functionality and capability is very good but it is narrowly focused on road trips which makes it incompatible for a lot of international travel planning I rate it a 3.5 out of five let's talk about price keep in mind that the pricing and features offered are accurate as of the making of this video the trip advisor travel planner is completely free it doesn't have ads either unless you count their own stuff as ads travel mapper has a free trial and has free features but otherwise costs as low as $12 per year that's $1 per month for these premium features wlog operates a freemium app the premium version is the most expensive and will set you back $49.99 per year the these are the premium features that come with the app tripet is free except for the live updates and navigation assistance and costs $48.99 per year finally Road Trippers is free up to seven way points in your itinerary and for everything else listed here it is $35.99 per year all right let's summarize everything and briefly go over the pros and cons of each app trip advisor's planer is free easy to use but lacks key travel planning features like adding custom locations to the map like air reports and airbnbs you can add notes but you can't categorize anything or add hyperlinks travel mapper is a detailed and capable planner built into Google Sheets has great features packed with automation map utility Synergy with Google Maps and is decently priced the downsides are that the UI may take some time to learn and planning is mostly meant to be done on the computer while navigating on your trip is meant to be done on your mobile device using your crafted itinerary wlog is a good overall planner with lots of great features its user experience is very good and also has a lot of free to use functionality by far the best part is its suggestions and recommendation tools however wlog is the most expensive option and work with Affiliates to sell you hotels this incentivizes them to recommend hotels you in their planner which may take away from the planning experience tripet is a detailed planner with realtime updates and navigation help it's easy to use has good free functionality but really lacks a good map finally Road Trippers is very capable sport a great map perfectly integrated into its planner and has good recommendations and automation the downside is that it is road trip focused and not a generalized planning tool if you're looking for a good overall planning tool and willing to pay wlog is a decent option if you're a hardcore RV and looking to ride off into the sunset and retirement Road Trippers is the best choice for Google Sheets users and getting the best bang for your book travel mapper is the app for you what do you think let us know in the comments below and thanks for watching