Travelling abroad for the very first time can be quite intimidating. I hope a thousand questions are swimming around your head, well I was at that very space until I realised that everything I needed was on my palm. This smart phone is really one piece of technology that hasn’t been exploited to its full potential.
Did you know a whole international trip can be planned by just sitting on your couch and with the smart phone in hand. Well most of it atleast. It’s 2020 and there is an app for everything, but what are the essential ones ?
TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor is the largest “social travel website” in the world, with about 315 million reviewers (active and inactive) and over 730 million reviews of hotels, restaurants, attractions and other travel-related businesses.
Though intended to plan your whole trip on it I prefer using TripAdvisor for its reviews and reccomendations. This is the most reliable source because you can get as early as a two days ago scenario on any hotel, place or activity and the content is by the travellers themselves. What better way to know than from someone who has done it already. Their forums are super useful too for initial research
Visit a city
I love this app because it not only lists out the places of attraction but also groups them together, this making it easy to plan the travel and also categorise which place Sto visit together. You can make a my plan and share it too. This makes it super easy while travelling because it can be save offline too. So once you have decided the country I suggest you search it here before you decide where to stay as you may then choose the most central location.
Google trips
This is one of the most underrated Google apps out there. I seriously don’t know why people use so less of this. I’d never seen anything like this before — or even close — in any other app. In Day Plans section of the app, there are a few suggested full and half day plans created automatically. Plans are theme based with each having a list of sight-seeing locations to visit. It’s kind of a virtual tour guide that takes the hassle and pain a person has to go through to the plan their whole day. Only a company at the scale of Google has all the ability and data to pull this off. Again this alone is a word of caution as it automatically access your calender mail and is synced to all other google apps.
Pick your Trail
This is an all in one app. If you are that person who wants to book a flight, hotel and plan the days of your trip all inclusive of transport in the new city- all of this in one place then you have arrived at the safest option. They even offer 24 hours all around personnel support so this app is basically your travels agent. Give them the dates, your preferences and location with budget and kick back and watch the whole trip planned for you in one interface. They have a section where all the vouchers (flight, hot, activity and travel) get stored so you only need a click to access all information anytime in your new city.
With so much information available today the challenge comes in what to believe and which to filter hence am listing out some of my favourite travel blogs whom I always refer to before travelling anywhere. You will get the gems from these.
https://www.bruisedpassports.com/ for those instagrammable travel plans
https://www.enidhi.net/ if you are on a budget, you will find very essential tips here
Int Affairs on YouTube are my favourite travel vlogs- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_04ZrNroTo
HappyMomLifestyle 
I swear planning a trip is so easy these days. No wonder people are everywhere now. Travelling has become a hobby. More airports are busy now a days.
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These are such amazing resources Arul. I am always lost when planning a trip. You have given a great place to start and guidance how to to go about
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Thoroughly informative post. In reality I use most of these apps on my iphone too!
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Trip advisor has been my go-to app when it comes to set an itinerary for my travel. I will try out the other apps you mentioned
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Thanks for the lovely post I was not aware of so many apps,I would definitely check them while booking for my next trip
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This is a very well explained post Arul.. I am travelling soon and I’m definitely going to take tips from your post
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Hi. this is such an informative and hepllpful post for people who love to travel. Will definitely try out google trips app.
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Great informative post and you had shared really easy resources for easy travel. I am a big fan of trip advisor and used it so many times with good results.
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that’s trip planning simplified to the tee :). Nice listing of apps. So far i haven’t used any of the mentioned apps and have been relying om MMT and Booking.com but the ease and the benefits of the apps mentioned by you is surely tempting enough to give them a try 🙂
Thanks for such an informative post !
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Very interesting and informative post. I am noting down the links for future reference. Thank you.
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I’m so glad you have included this great list in the post. I have not heard of Google Trips and will definitely try it out along with a few other apps you listed.
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Hey that’s super.. getting everything customized under budget is an awesome deal… Will surely checkout the links for my next trip…
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Glad you came with this post, I had never heard about google trips, in my next trip will definitely going to try this
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Plenty of information at single place, post is really very helpful for all the travel lovers, never used this app, would love to experience it.Thanks for sucha informative post.
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A very informative post I must say. Planning a trip is easy and with such helpful resources, it becomes fun too. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
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Wow Arul, these are some amazing websites which should we used for planning trips. Thanks for sharing.
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A very useful post to make trips easier and happier 😊
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