24 of the Best Travel Planning Apps You’ll Actually Use in 2025

Are you looking for the best travel planning apps that are out there? Then you’re in the right place.

Here are 24 of the best travel planning apps you’ll actually use – ranging from flight planning and itineraries to road trip planning, dog friendly travel planning and more… as recommended by travel bloggers.

UPDATE: We first published this blog post back in 2018. While many of our favourite travel apps are still alive and kicking and insanely useful, we’ve had to remove some from the list that have sadly gone out of business. Where possible, we’ve replaced them with other apps – including our new favourite, Airtable, which we’ve built a custom template for!

Best Apps for Itinerary Trip Planning

1. The Weather Channel, (iOS & Android), Free

The Weather Channel is an app that I keep on my cell and check quite often.

Yes, we all know that predictions aren’t accurate for more than 3 days in advance but it still gives a good idea of what to pack when you travel.

Plus, each morning I check it to figure out what the weather might look like.

I’ve been drenched before because I didn’t bother to check so …lesson learned.  

(Recommended by Cris from LooknWalk – see what other travel apps she’s recommending)

2. TripAdvisor, (iOS & Android), Free

The TripAdvisor app is a comprehensive list of reviews from travellers on global hotels, restaurants, and local attractions.

You can also access member forums and travel guides and reserve flights, hotels, or tours. We love using the app for last-minute restaurant searches or figuring out what to do for the day.

We also save forum posts and interesting attractions for future travel planning.

(Recommended by Jackie & Justin from Life Of Doing)

3. Google Maps, (iOS & Android), Free

I should first mention that I procrastinate planning. Or, “I prefer staying flexible in a sort of a ‘make your own adventure’ travel style.” 

During my 6-week road trip around Spain, I used Google Maps for planning at the last possible moment.

While wandering a city, town, or village, or even while driving (while someone else is driving, of course!), I’d move the Google map around my current location within a few blocks or a few miles and landmarks appeared on the map.

Also, once I clicked on a place I could read reviews, see photos, open hours, costs, busy times, and more. This helps in making my decision.

My favourite example of how Google Maps helped is this: a little town with a castle was coming up on our driving route in about 30 minutes. We saw in a review that you can borrow the castle key from City Hall if the castle is closed.

Sure enough, the castle was closed, and sure enough City Hall loaned me the key! I would have missed this fantastic experience if not for Google Maps.

(Recommended by Jessica from Longest Bus Rides)

4. Google My Maps, (iOS & Android), Free

Google My Maps allows you to create your own maps to visually plan out your itinerary.

You can customise your map by adding photos, notes or videos. Adding directions between the places you’ve pinned, for car, bicycle or public transport routes is also possible.

You can colour code and label everything – there are custom icons to use as well. Also, you can share this map by giving others access to viewing, editing and commenting.

(Recommended by Dani from A Baby Abroad)

READ NEXT: How To Plan A Trip Using Google Maps (+ BONUS Tips)

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Best Apps for Flights Booking & Planning

5. SeatGuru, (iOS & Android), Free

Have you ever gotten to your seat on an aircraft and wished you’d chosen differently? Well, it happened to me a few times until I discovered SeatGuru.

Simply enter the airline name, the date of travel and the flight number into the app, and a seat map will appear.

You’ll want to avoid the seats that are highlighted in red or yellow. These are the less desired seats due to a missing window and/or armrest, they don’t recline or because of their proximity to the lavatories.

You’ll never want to select a seat without the help of SeatGuru again, I promise!

(Recommended by Pamela from Travel Like A Chieff)

6. Skyscanner, (iOS & Android), Free

Skyscanner is my favourite travel app, and I always use it for booking last-minute, spontaneous trips.

If you need to get out without spending too much and are flexible on location, you can add your dates, enter the location as “anywhere”, and Skyscanner will show you the cheapest flights!

(Recommended by Angelica from Good Trip, Bad Memory)

7. Google Flights, (Android), Free

We’ve used the Google Flights app a lot during our travel planning.

As it’s a neutral third party, it’s able to show you the lowest fares across several different airlines.

You can even plan one-way and multi-city trips with it… always with the assurance that you’ll be seeing the cheapest airline prices.

And if you have flexibility over where you can travel to, you can also search for cheap fares in any month, which can be a great way to find locations you may not have thought of. That’s how we ended up in Cyprus last year!

(Recommended by Justine from Wanderers of the World)

8. Kiwi.com, (iOS & Android), Free

Everybody knows the big names like Skyscanner, Momondo or Google Flights.

While I like and use all of them, one rather unknown app managed to get into the spotlight for me: Kiwi.

What I love about it is that you can choose your starting airport, a time range (or even leave it open) and have a look at the cheapest flights – seeable on a map.

A perfect option to find your next budget trip – or to spend hours looking for inspiration.

(Recommended by Michael from mscgerber.com)

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Best Apps for Accommodation Booking & Planning

9. Couchsurfing, (iOS & Android), Free

A lot of people may have heard of Couchsurfing, but they don’t necessarily use it when they travel because they think that it is just a way to stay with people for free and they don’t feel comfortable sleeping at a stranger’s place.

That’s understandable, but Couchsurfing is actually so much more than that.

The “Hangouts feature” uses your GPS to find other travellers near you. You can make yourself available on the app and write what you want to do.

For example, you can say “I’ve just arrived in Berlin and want to grab dinner!” Other hungry travellers and locals can see your post and ask to join.

You don’t have to wait ages either – normally there are upwards of 40 people online and the replies are pretty instant so you can have a dinner companion five minutes later!

Even though I pretty much always travel alone, I’m not alone unless I want to be!

(Recommended by Melissa from High Heels & A Backpack – take a look at her guide to using the different features of Couchsurfing)

10. WikiCamps, (iOS & Android), AUD $7.99

WikiCamps has been invaluable on our trip around Australia. It’s not only provided great information on free camps, caravan parks and campsites but has also given us great picnic spots, playgrounds, swimming holes and more.

There are also versions for the US, UK and New Zealand.

(Recommended by Bryony from Coasting Australia – check out her tips for using WikiCamps)

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Best Apps for Organising Travel Plans

11. Airtable, (iOS & Android), Free

Everyone under the sun has probably created a spreadsheet to help them keep track of their travel plans – from tracking travel budgets and recording expenses to making checklists.

Well, the new and improved app on the block is Airtable. With this app, you can create an entire trip planner based on spreadsheets – but in a much more advanced and customisable way.

And the best bit? We’ve already done the hard work for you by creating The Wanderer’s Trip Planner as a template in Airtable, which has a travel planning to-do list, budget tracker, itinerary templates, expenses sheet, list of useful links and more.

Airtable and our specially designed trip planner is the new way to keep all your travel plans in an easy-to-use centralised system!

As a bonus, you can access the trip planner via desktop and mobile (everything syncs across automatically).

(Recommended by Justine from Wanderers of the World)

12. TripIt, (iOS & Android), Free

TripIt is the ultimate travel organiser where you can combine all your confirmation emails into one master itinerary.

You simply forward your emails and TripIt takes care of the rest.

You can also edit and add manually, and set up alerts and sync travel plans with your calendar.

In short, it makes it convenient and easy to see all of your booked travel plans and access bookings without searching for them individually.

(Recommended by Christine from Christine Abroad)

13. VoiceMap, (iOS & Android), Free-ish

If you like including walking tours in your itineraries, then you’ll probably like the VoiceMap app.

You’ll find a huge variety of audio walking tours (usually created by locals) to guide you around cities across the UK, Europe and beyond.

We recently paid for this tour around Leuven in Belgium, which used the VoiceMap app. The tour was well-planned, covering all the main sights plus some lesser-known places and very informative. We’ll definitely use this app again!

(Recommended by Justine from Wanderers of the World)

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Best Apps for Road Trip Planning

14. Rome2rio, (iOS & Android), Free

One of my favourite travel planning apps is Rome2rio.

Insert your origin and destination into the app and it will tell you the different ways to get between the locations.

Unlike Google Maps, Rome2rio will mix modes of transport to find you the best routes, such as taking a train or bus to another city before boarding a flight.

The other great thing about this app is it gives you a more realistic account of the time required to fly.

The app adds the time to transfer from the city to the airport and the required check-in time to your total flight time. This allows you to make a fair comparison with bus and train durations.

(Recommended by Kaylie from Happiness Travels Here)

15. HERE WeGo, (iOS & Android), Free

HERE WeGo is our go-to app for all of our travels.

This app allows you to plan your trips both on the road and on foot and then navigate from point to point on your tablet or phone easily and simply.

Best of all it works offline, so you don’t need to use up expensive mobile data or have an internet connection.

All this and it’s free!

(Recommended by Lee and Stacey from One Trip At A Time – check out their advice for using the Here WeGo app)

16. Parkopedia, (iOS & Android), Free

We never like to set off on a road trip without knowing where we’re going to park.

The Parkopedia app is our first port of call when we need to scout out parking spaces, but the best feature is that you can see instant prices… including where all the best FREE car parking spaces are!

(Recommended by Justine from Wanderers of the World)

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Best Apps for Learning Languages

17. Duolingo, (iOS & Android), Free

Heading to a country where you don’t know the language?

Check out Duolingo, a popular free learning app, to pick up some useful phrases or brush up on your language skills. Duolingo offers courses in 28 languages.

Learning tasks are cleverly gamified to make the process fun; you’ll cover vocabulary and grammar and even practice your conversation skills with bots.

(Recommended by Ingrid from Second-Half Travels)

18. Google Translate, (iOS & Android), Free

The Google Translate app is perfect for when you’re in locations that don’t display your native language.

Maybe you’re perusing a restaurant menu or looking at road signs… either way, you can hold this app up in front of what needs to be translated, and it will be done quickly and efficiently for you by the app.

Now, you shouldn’t expect the translation to be grammatically perfect, but it’ll definitely help you with simple language barriers.

You can even download language packs onto your phone, which means you won’t always need wifi or roaming data… perfect for those off-the-beaten-track destinations!

(Recommended by Justine from Wanderers of the World)

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Best Apps for Planning Travel Money

19. XE Currency App, (iOS & Android), Free

The XE Currency app is the best exchange rate app that I’ve found. It’s really simple to use and allows you to have multiple currencies displayed at the same time.

For example, if you want to know how much Swedish crowns are worth in both Euro and USD at the same time, this is possible to do.

The currency app also allows you to check the daily exchange rates for the world’s most frequently used currencies. Perfect when you travel to a country with a different currency than your own.

(Recommended by Alex from Swedish Nomad)

20. Travel Money, (Android), Free

This simple Travel Money app offers information on exchange rates across countries and enables you to track expenses for each trip – useful if you’re sharing the bill with someone.

The free version allows for up to 50 payments per trip, but there is also a premium version available to unlock more features.

(Recommended by Justine from Wanderers of the World)

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Best Apps for Food & Restaurant Planning

21. Foody, (iOS & Android), Free

Let’s all agree that if we are visiting Vietnam, we are not leaving this country without trying out the food right?

Foody is an app where the locals themselves share the best places to eat around Vietnam; from small towns to big cities. Foody will take you not only to places but will also give you an idea of which one to order in a particular restaurant.

If you are not feeling like walking, they also offer delivery.

(Recommended by Mary from Move To Vietnam)

22. Foursquare, (iOS & Android), Free

Whether you’re on the hunt for the best breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner spots, you can filter restaurant choices by this selection, as well as what type of cuisine you’re looking for.

It’s a simple and easy-to-use app, ensuring that when you’re on the hunt for food during your trip, you’ll find recommendations quickly.

(Recommended by Justine from Wanderers of the World)

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Best Apps for Dog Friendly Travel Planning

23. BringFido, (iOS & Android), Free

The BringFido app is really useful for planning dog friendly vacations.

It lets you browse through hundreds of dog friendly hotels, and even recommends local dog parks, walking trails and dog friendly beaches you might want to go to during your holiday.

You can even filter hotels by “multiple pets” and “large dogs”, ensuring your search is tailored to your individual dog friendly travel requirements.

(Recommended by Justine from Wanderers of the World)

24. Bauwow, (iOS & Android), Free

Whether you’re looking for dog friendly accommodation, cafes, beaches, doggie parks, attractions or otherwise, you’ll find it on this comprehensive app.

It provides you with all the information you could possibly need, including whether there are any doggie restrictions, and you can even arrange meetups with other dog owners using the app so your canine pal has a furry friend of his or her own too!

(Recommended by Justine from Wanderers of the World)

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We hope you find these travel planning apps useful! What other apps do you use that aren’t listed here? Let us know in the comments below because we’re always on the hunt for new recommendations…