Planning trips has always been somewhat of a mixed experience. On one hand, I’m excited and look forward to the new things and places on the trip but on the other hand sifting through the infinite number of repetitive recommendations is incredibly excruciating and painful.
With the ever increasing number of travel related apps out there I still don’t feel satisfied by any of the given experiences. What is it that we are looking for when preparing to hit the road? Are we looking for the cheapest passage? Curated and guided? Tours and packages on arrival or something to remind me of everything that I’ve planned? Perhaps something that combines all the elements above? There are of course great individual services out there that solve some very useful problems. Here are a few that I always look at and use.
Kayak. Just to get a sense of everything form flights to hotels and cars.
Airbnb. To find some cool local places to stay vs mainstream hotels.
Viator. Check out and plan excursions and tickets to places I don’t want to lineup for.
Trip Advisor and other Guides. These get a bit confusing and not always the most locally knowledgable but does a broad sweep. There are some socially crowd sourced apps that I’ve played with too but who are these people rating and talking about places?
I think that at the end of the day, something should understand my price range, cool or main stream accommodations, choices of things I want to do and to lay it all out within the dates I want. This may be asking for a lot but is it? Let’s hope more teams out there come up with smart ways to make globe trotting easier!
Suggestions?
the techathlete. 