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Trip planning takes work. Depending on the trip, it can be hard and complicated. Trip planning websites and trip planning apps make this easier.
After years of acting as a travel planner for solo, couple, and group travel I’ve got a collection of apps and sites that I rely on to pull off a successful trip.
Hopefully, you find some of these travel planning apps and travel planning websites as useful as I do!
Here’s what I consider the best app for planning trips in several categories
Ryan’s favorite travel websites and apps
Expedia, Airbnb, booking.com – My go-tos to book places to stay. I like the rewards and member discounts from Expedia and friends.
Rakuten – Earn cash back shopping online at loads of places for things like hotels, clothes, electronics, booking tours, and more. I’ve gotten $100s in cash back! Free to join and use. Sign up here to earn a bonus!
Viator, GetYourGuide – Research and book tours, outings, and excursions in various destinations.
Google Maps and Docs – Trip planning, note taking, etc.
iOverlander – Invaluable info for road trips. Helps find the nearest campground, place to get drinking water, or place to park your rig.
Hotel booking
Travel planning always requires finding accommodations. Here are some of my favorite trip planning websites to book hotels and more.
Agoda & booking.com
Agoda and booking.com are both popular booking sites. They have some overlap in properties. Agoda is particularly good for Asia. booking.com is great for Europe and the USA.
I find that many vacation rentals in Europe are also listed on booking.com. Consider that in addition to sites like VRBO and Airbnb.
Hotels.com / Expedia
Hotels.com & Expedia are 2 of the sites I commonly use for booking traditional hotels in the USA and Europe.
I like the breadth of the selection, find reviews to be reliable, they have member pricing, and they provide a rewards program. Rewards are shared across Hotels.com, Expedia, and VRBO.
VRBO / Airbnb
Vacation rentals like apartments, condos, and homes are common on VRBO and Airbnb. When spending extended periods of time in a location, I try to book a place with a kitchen, a bit more space, and other facilities to make my stay more comfortable.
In addition to VRBO and Airbnb, also check booking.com for European destinations. Many apartments and homes are listed for rent there as well.
Hostelworld
Hostels can be great options for saving money and meeting others. Hostelworld is a good choice to look for great places in many locales. That said, many hostels are small businesses and provide better rates by booking directly.
Aggregators like Google Hotels / Kayak
In addition to the sites above, I like to leverage aggregators like Google Hotels and Kayak. These sites show prices from multiple sites so you can easily compare.
Note These sometimes don’t show member discounts, show booking agencies I’m uncomfortable using, or show inaccurate info. Despite that, seeing the aggregated data is very useful when planning.
Book directly with the property
Most of the sites I’ve listed so far charge fees to the properties they list. This means you can sometimes get better rates by booking directly with the property.
In my experience, the rates are sometimes better with the booking sites and sometimes better when booking directly with the property.
Also consider the tradeoffs regarding things like flexibility, reliability, and rewards programs.
Pro tip: Look for rewards programs with sites & hotels
Many booking sites offer rewards or loyalty programs. Some of these give special rates. Others offer future discounts.
Many properties have similar loyalty programs when directly booking.
Consider how these discounts impact the overall price of your stay.
Pro tip: Check for Rakuten cash back
I hadn’t heard of Rakuten until recently. It’s a cash-back program that lets you earn from online purchases.
The rewards for expensive things like hotels can be significant. During a recent road trip, Hotels.com and Expedia were offering 6%-10% cash back on hotel stays! That can be an incredible savings on top of other reward programs.
Rates vary throughout the year, so keep your eye on the sites you buy from and save money.
Sign up with my referral link and get an extra 10% cash back!
Pro tip: Stack with CC rewards
Don’t forget to check your credit card rewards programs to further optimize your savings. Some cards offer specific rewards for hotel brands, booking sites, and more. Combine those with the merchant rewards and Rakuten to really push your savings.
Maps apps
Using maps for travel planning is an essential step for me. Laying out a custom map for travel planning lets me see where attractions are and helps me build an itinerary.
Google Maps is my chosen online map but there are other options. Let’s see how they might be helpful for you.
Google Maps
Trip planning Google Maps are part of my planning from the beginning.
Google Maps Lists
Lists are an easy way to use a Google Map for trip planning. Open Google Maps, choose a location, and click “Save”. You can then save it to an existing list or a new list.
Your lists show up under your “Saved” locations in Google Maps.
I like to use lists for smaller-scale trips and for recording locations that I enjoy. I simply make a new list for each new destination and populate it with the set of places I want to visit.
Your saved locations then show up with special markers on Google Maps so you can easily spot them while out and about.
Lists can also be shared with others to travel plan Google Maps for a group. They work great on desktop and in the Google Maps mobile apps.
Custom maps
The next step for me after lists is creating custom travel maps in Google Maps for travel planning.
To do this, navigate to https://www.google.com/mymaps/. From there click “CREATE A NEW MAP” in the top left.
You can name your map, add a description, add custom locations on the map, choose special icons for locations, organize your locations into layers (e.g. food, museums, bars), share your map with others, and embed your map on your site!
Creating custom Google Maps for trip planning is how I make all of the maps on this site like this one
Note-taking / documents
When doing group travel planning, I find that collecting, organizing, and distributing information is one of the hardest tasks.
Shared documents and note-taking apps are at the core of my group trip planning apps. Here’s what I like to use.
Google Docs / Sheets / Drive
Shared documents and spreadsheets on Google Drive are a great way for a group to be able to collect and share information. Everyone can edit and include their own info.
Group travel planning leaders can prepare for conversations by adding information to these. They’re also significantly better than chat apps for this information because things are sticky and don’t get lost in piles of threads.
iCloud and other Apple analogs
iCloud, Apple Notes, etc. provide analogs for Apple users. In my experience though, using the Apple equivalents on Android phones can be very difficult. The desktop interface works pretty well though.
Evernote
Evernote is another shared note-taking system that can be great for sharing information. Generally, see where most of your group is and pick that system to collaborate to reduce friction.
Dropbox
Finally, if you want to do things more manually a shared drive like Dropbox can also be helpful here.
Activities & more
Researching and booking activities for your trips also takes a significant amount of time. Here are some tools that help me.
Activity and tour booking sites: GetYourGuide, Viator, TripAdvisor
Similar to hotel booking, many sites exist to research and book activities. GetYourGuide, Viator, and TripAdvisor are some winning choices I’ve seen.
GetYourGuide and Viator both list activities, tours, outings, etc. that you can book on their sites. You can research reviews, costs, cancellation policies, and more. It’s worth checking both because they don’t always offer the same options in each locale.
TripAdvisor also allows direct booking of activities. However, I mostly use it for research of the top N things to do in a new destination. It’s great in that regard.
Book directly with the tour operator
Similar to hotels you can also try to book directly with tour operators. Doing so can sometimes give you better rates and can sometimes simplify the process if something goes wrong by communicating directly with the operator.
Consider differences in cost, perks, and flexibility when choosing how to book your activities.
Road trips / overlanding / camping
Recently I was planning a trip out west where I’d be driving around for several months. I learned about a number of useful tools for road-tripping, overlanding, and camping.
Plan with custom Google Map
Custom Google Maps were essential for planning such a large trip. I was able to visualize my options and prospective route and add to it intentionally.
Tip Use offline maps to ensure you’ll have your map if you lose cell connectivity. You can add locations to your custom maps/lists and they’ll be available offline too.
iOverlander
iOverlander is my new favorite road trip app. It’s a crowdsourced site that shows useful information for road trippers, van lifers, RVers, and more.
You’ll find info on camping areas, public land allowing free dispersed camping for boondocking, RV dump stations, places to get drinking water, propane sellers, and much more.
The locations listed on iOverlander usually have very practical advice as well. This was essential for my trip.
Tip Open locations from iOverlander in Google Maps, save them, and then use offline maps to ensure you can find them when you lose cell service.
Boondocking.org
Boondocking.org shows sites where you can boondock (dispersed camping on public land). Many states have large swaths of public land which are available for free camping for periods of time.
iOverlander shows many of these locations. Boondocking.org is another great resource for such information.
Campendium
Campendium offers similar info to iOverlander. I don’t have personal experience with it. But I heard that a few others like it.
Hipcamp
Hipcamp is like the Airbnb of camping. You can use it to find many unique private RV sites, campgrounds, and more. I haven’t directly used it, but there are a ton of interesting options on it.
BLM and other government sites
Finally, the final resources on public lands are the local land managers. These tend to be various agencies like the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and others. They provide the most definitive information.
Disclaimer: I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you when you make purchases via links on this site. Thanks for supporting me in creating content like this! See the privacy policy.
