10 Travel Apps I Use at Every Stage of a Trip (Tested on 25+ Countries)
Most travel planning apps promise to organise everything. A handful of them actually do. Here's the shortlist.
- 📍 Wanderlog for itinerary planning
- 🚌 Rome2Rio for multi-modal transport research
- 🧭 Rexby for creator-curated guides
- 💰 Hopper for monitoring prices (never book through it)
- 🚂 Trainline for European trains
- ✈️ Flighty for flight tracking (iOS) / TripIt for cross-platform
- 🗺️ Google Maps, Apple Maps, or Citymapper depending on destination
- 💸 Splitwise for splitting group expenses
- 📌 Skratch for logging countries and bucket lists
I used to plan trips in chaos. Screenshots of hotel confirmations scattered across three apps, tabs left open for days, a running note full of things I was afraid to forget. What fixed it was not finding one super-app. It was realizing that different moments in a trip need different tools, and forcing one app to do everything creates more friction than it solves.
These are the 10 apps I actually open, organized by the moment in the trip when you need them.
Planning
📍 Wanderlog for building your itinerary
Wanderlog is where every trip starts for me. Add destinations, drag stops around on a map, and share the link with whoever you are traveling with. The free tier covers everything most travelers need: unlimited trips, collaborative editing, and basic offline access.
Pro costs $39.99 a year and adds route optimization, multi-stop road trip routing (similar to Google Maps but for full itineraries), and Gmail auto-import of booking confirmations.
🚌 Rome2Rio for figuring out how to get there
Before I book anything, I open Rome2Rio and type in my two endpoints. It surfaces every transport option side by side: flight, train, bus, ferry, drive, with estimated times and prices for each. For a route like Narbonne to Barcelona, it shows the train at 2 hours 40 minutes for around €30 before I have even opened a booking site.
Wanderlog tells you where to go. Rome2Rio tells you how to get there when the answer is not obvious.
🧭 Rexby for finding what to do
Rexby is newer to my stack. I came across it as a travel creator and started building my own guides on the platform, which is when I understood what makes it different. The guides come from travel content creators, not algorithms. You get an interactive map, pre-designed itineraries, and curated picks for sightseeing, accommodation, and tours, all built by people who actually went.
Download it free on iOS, Android, and web. My own guides are in progress. I will link them here once they are live.
Monitoring
💰 Hopper for watching prices (not for booking)
Hopper is useful for one specific thing: watching how prices move over time. Search a route, check whether the price is predicted to rise or drop, and then close the app.
I do not book through Hopper. Refunds go to Carrot Cash, which means in-app credit only, not your original payment method. The Price Freeze feature has undisclosed caps, so a large price jump may only be partially covered even after you paid the freeze fee. Checkout prices frequently differ from what was shown. Once Hopper tells you the price is right, book direct with the airline.
🚂 Trainline for European trains
Trainline covers trains across 44 countries in Europe, including Spain, France, Italy, Germany, and the UK. For the Madrid to Barcelona AVE (2h30, from €14), it is easier and more reliable than navigating Renfe directly.
One caveat: not all Spanish timetables appear on Trainline. When I traveled to Girona, some departure times only showed on the Renfe app or at the station kiosk. For Spanish regional routes, always cross-check with Renfe.es before assuming you have seen all options.
Book as early as possible. Prices on Spanish high-speed routes climb sharply in the last two weeks. I aim for 30 to 60 days out.
Karen Roldan
In transit
✈️ Flighty (iOS) or TripIt (iOS and Android) for flight tracking
Flighty gives you live flight status, gate changes, aircraft tail numbers, and delay predictions before the airline updates its own app. It costs $49 a year or $250 for a lifetime plan. The Passport feature tracks cumulative stats: total hours flown, distance, aircraft types, and an annual summary.
If you are on Android, use TripIt instead. Forward your booking confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com and it builds your itinerary automatically. The free tier is sufficient for casual travelers. TripIt Pro adds real-time flight alerts for $49 a year, which pays off if you fly once a month or more.
🗺️ Navigation: Google Maps, Apple Maps, or Citymapper
The right navigation app depends on where you are going. Google Maps works well across Europe, the Americas, and most of the world. Apple Maps is worth checking in some destinations where it has stronger local data.
For urban transit in cities like London, Barcelona, Paris, or New York, switch to Citymapper. It handles real-time bus, metro, and bike routes better than Google Maps and tells you exactly which exit to take and where to stand on the platform.
In South Korea, use Naver Map. Google Maps has very limited routing and place data there. Before any trip, spend 30 seconds searching what navigation app locals actually use at your destination. That one habit has saved me more than once.
Group trips
💸 Splitwise for splitting expenses
Use Splitwise on every trip you take with friends. Add everyone to a group, log expenses as you go, and the app calculates what each person owes at settlement. It handles multiple currencies and keeps notes per expense so there are no disputes about who paid for what three days ago.
Download it free on iOS, Android, and web. It is the only thing that has made shared travel finances genuinely stress-free.
Karen Roldan
After the trip
📌 Skratch for your visited countries and bucket list
Skratch is where I log where I have been and where I want to go next. Less a planning tool, more a personal record: tap a country, mark it visited, add the ones on your list.
I open it after every trip to close the loop. It is the app I pull up when someone asks how many countries I have been to.
Karen Roldan
FAQ
What is the best free travel planner app?
Wanderlog. The free tier is unlimited and the collaborative editing works well for group trips.
What is the best travel app for Android?
Wanderlog for planning, TripIt for flight tracking, Splitwise for group expenses, and Google Maps or the local equivalent for navigation. All free, all on Android.
Is there a travel app that does everything?
No. Any app that claims to handle everything does most things poorly. The apps in this list each have one specific job, which is why they work.
What app do travel bloggers use to plan trips?
Wanderlog for itineraries, Rome2Rio for routing, and Rexby for discovering guides from other travel creators.
Part of the Travel Guides — your complete guide to travel guides and city itineraries.