I love planning trips. When I create trips I map out all the sites my husband and I would visit that day, how we would get from one site to another, and approximately how long we would spend at each site. I never care if we do exactly what I planned; I just hate spending vacation time figuring out what we're going to do. So in this blog I will detail the apps I use to plan my vacations. For If You Don't Have International Data: MapsMeThis is the most important app you can have if you don't want to pay for international data. This app pinpoints your location, which moves with you, and you can use that to get you where you need to go. It can tell you where ATMs, transporation stations, and landmarks are WITHOUT DATA. You do need to download the map of the city you want to go to before you leave, but it's all completely free. For Finding Trips: GrouponI always check Groupon first for a good deal or to find inspiration for where to go next. However, I've actually never booked a trip through Groupon. Both companies I've used for international travel, Go-Today (Europe trip) and Affordable World (Thailand trip), I discovered because they listed a trip on Groupon. I ended up going on a different trip than the one in the deal, but I never would have found that company without Groupon. I could not find better deals for similar trips than the companies I chose. To use Groupon to find trips, you enter a place you want to go in the search bar. This can be as specific as "New York City" or as vague as "Europe". If you have no idea where you want to go, you can just click on the Getaway navigation link in the header to view all of their getaways; I have used this to browse trips are and add them to my bucket list. You do not need an account to look at trips, but you would need one to checkout. Singing up is completely free. Always look for a 10-20% off Getaways coupon when you checkout or wait for one to start. They happen often and can get you $50 off your trip. For Day Planning: Sygic TravelThis trip planner works better on the app than the website. It looks like the Trip Planner portion on the website has been reduced to a legacy section of the site, so it's probably no longer updated and slow from lack of servers running it. Still, it is the best website I have found to plan out each day of a trip. It has predefined itineraries for many cities which can be selected based on how many days you plan to be in the city. The itinerary maps out a path for several places to see. It has information embedded from Wikipedia about each site. Plus, once planning is complete, you can print out a full itinerary with all your notes or save paper and view the trip from the app. I always made notes about open and closing time of sites (though sometimes it had it) and how to get from one location to the next (based on Rome2Rio). For Transportation (Uber/Bus/Subway): Rome2RioRome2Rio is a great site for figuring out how to get from one landmark to another. It lists out all the options, such as tube/subway, bus, taxi, or walking. For subways and buses, it includes how long it would take to walk to the station. It lists the approximate pricing to help guide your decision. Knowing how much transportation costed and how many times I would need to use it allowed me to make the decision on a bus/subway pass or buying a ticket when I needed it. For Trip Pinning: Google MyMapsThis web application utilizes your Google account. It can be used just like Sygic Travel, where you can map out all the sites you want to go to in a city; then you can plan the best order and path to see them all. It can also be used to pin the cities you want to go (as well as cities you've been). For What to Stop At: TripAdvisor and YelpSometimes I find a really great restaurant and add it to my trip (on SygicTravel) to make sure I get to it, even if it's out of the way. Other times, I just want to find something that will be closely to the landmark we're at around lunch time. We never traveled with international data, so I looked up good restaurants beforehand, because I didn't want to waste a meal in a sub-par restaurant with only a few days in a big city. SygicTravel itineraries usually cover enough of the things to do for the days you set it to, but there's usually some good tours that it wouldn't list (like foodie and ghosts tours).
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AuthorHi! I'm Amber. I love spreadsheets and painting. This blog is where I post about my crafts and adventures. Archives
November 2018
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