travel tracker app review

7 Useful Apps Every Traveler Should Know About

By Harrison Pierce

All products featured on Condé Nast Traveler are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Technology continues to make travel easier for millions of people around the globe. New apps offer travelers fresh ways to research a destination, connect with fellow globetrotters, communicate with locals, and track their flights. As a full-time digital nomad , I’ve learned the importance of having the right tools at your disposal when on the road.

Over the past few years, I’ve visited dozens of countries, flown hundreds of thousands of miles, and tested countless apps to find the ones that prove to be the most helpful. And while tools like Meetup, Google Maps, Google Translate, currency converters, and vacation rental , airline, and hotel–specific apps are in fact indispensable on most trips, I find that many of the best travel apps are still undiscovered by my fellow travelers.

Below, seven travel apps that make life on the go markedly easier (and more fun), from real-time flight trackers to photo-sharing gems—all of these apps are free, but some have paid pro versions worth considering. Don’t think these apps are only for full-time travelers—they prove useful for every type of traveler, whether you're in a brand-new destination or back for a return visit.

Discover the best apps for travelers:

Apps for flying, apps for exploring, apps for photo sharing.

My favorite app on this list is Flighty, a must-have for any frequent flier . The free version is fantastic, but I recommend splurging for the premium version, which gives you even more useful information and comes at a reasonable cost of $48 per year. The functionality it provides more than justifies the price.

The free version allows you to input all future flights plus past journeys you've taken within the last year. It provides updated information if any schedule changes occur to upcoming flights and allows you to track all the miles you’ve flown in one place.

The other main benefit is that it allows you to share your flight information with friends and family members who are also on Flighty. They will receive real-time updates about your flight without you having to text them. My parents love to make sure I’m safe so they appreciate getting detailed information about my travels—even while I’m in the air.

Flightradar24 is a favorite app among fellow aviation geeks. It lets you track almost any aircraft you see in the air throughout the day or night. You can track your own flight, a friend's flight, or any plane you see in real-time. It shares plenty of cool data, like the altitude, speed, arrival and departure airports and times, and tail number.

There are tons of eSIM apps on the market, but Airalo is probably my favorite, with digital SIM cards available for dozens of countries. I find it to be the most reliable and offers the best data packages. It can be a little pricey, but it is the best option if you’re only taking short trips. Holafly is another eSIM app that offers unlimited data and works well, but I find the app to be much more glitchy than Airalo and would recommend using the desktop version.

This one is for the planner of the group. Wanderlog merges the best of a bunch of different apps into one. Imagine an app that lets you plan a trip with ease: collaborate with friends as if you’re on Google Docs, manage expense tracking like Splitwise, and have a central place for your reservations, checklists, and more. Tripit is a similar travel planner app, so you can download both and get a feel for which interface you like better.

Been allows you to track the countries you’ve visited and make a wish list of places you can’t wait to cross off your travel bucket list . It gives you information like the percentage of the globe you’ve been to and shows you a world map of your trips. It’s always fun to add in a new country whenever I reach my destination.

This app was introduced to me by fellow nomads I met at a cafe in Montevideo, Uruguay . It automatically tracks your route across the world, allowing you to quickly upload pictures throughout your travels that can be viewed by anyone who has access to your profile. It’s an excellent way to share important moments with loved ones without needing to send photos to each person individually. Users can also create easily accessible guides filled with up-to-date information to help you plan your own trip.

Steller is another app that a friend recently introduced me to, and I’ve quickly fallen in love with it. It uses a combination of AI and user experiences to help you plan trips around the globe. From recommendations of things to see, like the Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires or the Royal Palace of Naples, to full guidebooks created by users, you can get inspired, book experiences, and discover hidden gems within this app.

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Best travel apps in 2021

Beat the traffic, avoid flight delays and find a place to stay on your next trip

The best travel apps are the ones that take all the stress out of a trip, freeing you up to enjoy the journey. And fortunately, you've got a lot of choices when it comes to finding apps that can help you plan your next getaway. 

You'll find everything from trip planners and itinerary generators to online marketplaces for flights and hotels in both the Play Store and Apple's store for apps. Combine one of the best travel apps with some great travel tech , and your chances for a smooth trip will increase dramatically.

• These are the best Android apps overall
• Get better trip photos with the best Android camera apps

Not sure where to look first? We've found a list of the best travel apps for when you're ready to hit the road again after sticking close to home for more than a year.

1. MyTSA (Free: Android; iOS)

Before you hit the road, make sure you've got MyTSA on your smartphone. The official app of the Transportation Security Administration isn't going to win any beauty contests, but it will let you check wait times at security checkpoints at major airpots. And that can help you plan on how much travel time you need to allow.

The app includes historical wait-time data while also giving you the option of checking crowd-sourced reports of how long security lines are at that moment. The ability to search what you can bring on a plane, get live assistance and find out info on the TSA PreCheck program make this a good app for travelers to keep handy on their smartphone.

Download MyTSA: Android , iOS

2. Expedia (Android, iOS: Free)

If you're a frequent traveller, you need a good all-in-one travel app, and Expedia is a tried-and-true option. You can book every aspect of your trip through Expedia, including hotels, flights and rental cars. The app also lets you bundle deals on travel and lodging, look for cruises, and research things to do when you arrive at your destination. 

If you're looking to stretch your travel budget even farther, Expedia promises exclusive deals for mobile users, with members of Expedia's rewards program enjoying additional perks. 

Download Expedia: Android , iOS

3. Flighty (iOS: Free)

There are flight trackers, and then there's Flighty, an iOS app for people who really want to know the location and arrival time of their plane. The free version of the app gives you basic flight-tracking tools, but pay up for a subscription ($8.99 a month or $49.99 per year), and you get access to more sophisticated features such as push notifications, syncing with TripIt or with calendars, and an assistant to help with your flight connections. 

Flighty also claims to be able to predict flight delays by monitoring inbound planes for 25 hours and monitoring FAA-mandated delays. You can check out the portions of the paid app for free during a 14-day trial.

Download Flighty: iOS

4. Hopper (Android, iOS: Free)

Another app bringing big data and predictive algorithms to the world of air travel is Hopper It uses a massive database of airline prices and historical trends to predict when prices to a destination are likely to be lowest, when they're likely to change, and the best time to buy a ticket for a particular date and destination. 

You can watch flights on specific dates or destinations, and the app will advise you whether it's worth it to buy now or to wait, tell you the dates when it's likely cheapest to fly, estimate changes in price, and notify you of price drops or rises. You can also save your payment details within the app for quick booking.

Download Hopper: Android , iOS

5. iExit (Android, iOS: Free)

If your travel plans involve a lot of driving, iExit works as a handy freeway exit guide, listing nearby highway exits, as well as the kind of businesses and amenities there are nearby. Need to gas up or find some good food or a place to stay for the night? iExit’s search tools come to the rescue, showing you nearby gas stations (with price data powered by GasBuddy), motels, and even deals and discounts from nearby businesses.

Download iExit: Android , iOS

6. Waze (Android; iOS)

Nothing gets a vacation off on the wrong foot like getting stuck in traffic. Waze can't eliminate the traffic, but it can help you get around any jams, especially if you're in an unfamiliar city. 

The navigation app feeds your smartphone real-time traffic information, based on reports from other Waze users. That data includes accidents, speed traps and other hazards that might keep you from getting to your destination in a timely fashion. 

Other features sure to impress travelers include automatic rerouting, cheap gas alerts and the ability to send your ETA to anyone waiting at your final stop.

Download Waze: Android , iOS

7. Skiplagged (Android, iOS: Free)

If you're traveling light and looking to save a few bucks, check out Skiplagged. It's a neat app that can keep your travel costs down by taking advantage of "hidden city flights", where flyers get off at a layover, instead of at the final destination. 

Enter your origin and destination, and Skiplagged will show you the cost of a direct flight, as well as any cheaper "hidden city" flights that have your intended destination as a layover. The caveat? Stick to carry-on luggage, as any checked-in bags will go all the way to the flight's final destination. 

Skiplagged also allows you to book hotels, including last-minute deals and special offers.

Download Skiplagged: Android , iOS

8. Flio (Android, iOS: Free)

Flio aims to be the all-in-one companion app for harried travelers making their way through airports worldwide. An official partner of 300 airports, Flio also has info on thousands more. That lets the app feature terminal maps, a boarding pass scanner, a flight tracker and directions to shuttle buses and booking options for everything from parking to lounge access. 

The app's sheer variety of services and features make it a great addition to the app toolkit of frequent fliers and vacationers alike.

Download Flio: Android , iOS

9. AtYourGate (Android, iOS: Free)

AtYourGate is another helpful airport companion that focuses more about retail opportunities while you're killing time waiting at the airport. If you need food, supplies (like say a phone charger to replace the one you forgot to pack), or last-minute gifts, you can browse the AtYourGate app for nearby shops and restaurants instead of having to wander around the airport. 

AtYourGate users can order food or other items, pay through the app, and even arrange for the item to be delivered to them right at their gate, lounge, or other location. AtYourGate currently operates in a select number of major airports, including JFK, La Guardia, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Portland, San Diego, and Newark.

Download AtYourGate: Android , iOS

10. Mobile Passport (Android, iOS: Free)

Mobile Passport is a U.S. Customs and Border Protection-approved app that helps speed you through lengthy immigration lines. It allows anyone with U.S. or Canadian passports to submit their passport control and customs declarations through the app, replacing paper forms and providing faster processing in a number of major US airports where the Mobile Passport service is supported. 

The app will save you a good amount of time in line, but it’s no reason to leave your physical passport at home. Mobile Passport is a companion app, not a replacement.

Download Mobile Passport: Android , iOS

11. TripIt (Android, iOS: Free)

TripIt promises to cut back on the travel hassle by consolidating your travel plans into a simple, convenient itinerary. Viewable online and synced to your cell phone, you can also share itineraries with your contacts. 

You just link your email account to TripIt, and the service will automatically dig through your inbox for reservation confirmations and other forms. Using that data, TripIt builds an organized itinerary of your flight boarding times, hotel check-ins and more. While TripIt is a free download, a $48.99 annual subscription gets you features like real-time flight alerts and updates on how long airport lines are.

Download TripIt: Android , iOS

12. App In The Air (Android, iOS: Free)

App In The Air is designed to help you through the entire process of your airplane flight, serving as a booking assistant that reminds you of your gate, ETA, check-in requirements, baggage tips, and more. 

The app condenses all of this important information so that it's easy to refer to at a glance, while also providing handy extras. You can view a summary of your airline's baggage rules (or even have an augmented reality overlay that you can use to measure your baggage to see if it will fit for carry-on or overhead guidelines). 

Travelers can integrate the app with TripIt, track loyalty rewards, view airplane amenities and even forward their details to their Apple Watch or Android Wear device. A premium subscription ($29.99 per year) includes real-time flight status updates, automated check-ins, and more.

Download App In The Air: Android , iOS

13. GasBuddy (Android, iOS: Free)

If road trips are more your thing, consider GasBuddy, a mobile app that helps users track down the cheapest gas in their region. Users can tap into their GPS location through their phone, or search by address or zip code to find the nearby gas prices.

As many of the prices are based on user reports, GasBuddy rewards users with points for reporting and updating a station's prices, with points making you eligible for regular raffles of prizes like free gas.

Download GasBuddy: Android , iOS

14. Roadtrippers (Android, iOS: Free)

Another handy travel companion when you hit the road is the aptly named Roadtrippers, a trip planning and itinerary app that lets you plot your next road trip, and helps you discover destinations, attractions, and useful stops along the way. 

With Roadtrippers, you can share your route and schedule with friends and family. The app helps users find everything from diners and dives to hotels, restaurants, national parks, roadside attractions and other scenic points of interest. 

If doing that research on a small phone screen stresses you out, you can plan trips in the Roadtrippers web portal if you prefer, saving locations and stops into a trip plan which you can sync across multiple devices for easy reference.

Download Roadtrippers: Android , iOS

15. PackPoint (Android, iOS: Free)

PackPoint is a travel packing wizard that provides a checklist of travel essentials that you'll need to pack, depending on the nature of your trip. 

Simply create a trip profile with your destination, length of stay and purpose of travel. PackPoint then creates a customized packing and luggage checklist that takes into account whether you're traveling for business or pleasure, the type and amount of clothing to pack based on the weather forecast and other factors. 

The app also comes with a variety of premium features, such as TripIt integration for automatic packing list creation.

Download PackPoint: Android , iOS

16. TripAdvisor (Android, iOS: Free)

TripAdvisor is your crowd-sourced guide to hotels, restaurants and attractions worldwide. The app allows you to browse through plenty of reviews, images and videos featuring various establishments worldwide to get a better idea of what awaits you at your destination. 

You can also access contact details; search for nearby establishments; explore restaurants by food type, price range or rating; check out air fares; and even add to the knowledge base by posting your own reviews, images and entries for the places you visit. There are even some handy "Near Me Now" features to alert you of nearby points of interest once you're on the scene.

Download TripAdvisor: Android , iOS

17. Airbnb (Android, iOS: Free)

Airbnb is a marketplace app that allows users to search for and find unique accommodations across the world, from mom-and-pop B&Bs for a night, to a small apartment for a week, or even a castle for a month. There's no shortage of quirky and unique establishments. Airbnb covers a range of prices in more than 34,000 cities across almost 200 countries, which means the adventurous or flexible traveler has some interesting choices for accommodations on their next trip.

Download Airbnb: Android , iOS

18. Vrbo (Android, iOS: Free)

Vrbo's mobile app is another option for finding places to stay on your next trip. At Vrbo, the emphasis is on vacation rentals, and with 2 million unique places to stay in 190-plus countries, you've got plenty of options. 

Use the Vrbo app to search for vacation homes, plan your trip and book your lodging. The app also gives you access to key booking details — what is the Wi-Fi password at your rental property, anyway? — and lets you share your itinerary with friends and family.

Download Vrbo: Android , iOS

19. Hotel Tonight (Android, iOS: Free)

If you unexpectedly need to look for last minute hotel rooms, check out  HotelTonight. It offers last-minute discounts on vacancies and same-night accommodations from top-rated hotels. Users can search by category and quality such as Basic, Hip or Luxe; view information on nearby hotels; and quickly book accommodations from within the app.

Download HotelTonight: Android , iOS

20. GlobeTips (iOS: Free)

How much should you tip? GlobeTips is a handy app that can tell you how much gratuity is customary wherever you are in the world. In addition to global tipping guides, GlobeTips includes a calculator for automatically calculating the tip, splitting the bill, and handling sales tax.

Download GlobeTips: iOS

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Polarsteps Review [2024]: Are they actually any good?

I've heard Polarsteps mentioned most frequently with people I've met at hostels around the world, but people had different opinions on the app. Is it just a travel tracking app? Can I document my journey without paying for it? I've dug through Polarsteps so you won't need to.

Do you love to capture the essence of your travels and keep those memories alive?

Maybe you're into crafting scrapbooks adorned with photos, tickets, and little mementos that transport you back to those joy-filled moments of exploration. Or perhaps you find joy in collecting souvenirs, each piece echoing a special story from your journey. Embracing such practices can truly amplify the magic of your travel experiences.

This brings us to the intriguing proposition of transforming our travel experiences into a personalized digital scrapbook. The concept is fascinating, isn't it? But does it really capture the essence of your memories as authentically as a traditional scrapbook would? Could it possibly replace the nostalgia that comes with flipping through tangible pages of a physical scrapbook? And is it truly worth trying out? Even if you were interested, how might you get started with something like this?

To quench your curiosity, I'm about to delve into an in-depth review of Polarsteps, an innovative travel planning and tracking app. Ready to join me on this digital exploration? Let's dive in and unearth the nuances of this modern memory-capturing tool!

What is Polarsteps?

Polarsteps is a comprehensive travel planning and tracking app, dedicated to keeping you connected with your travel journeys - before, during, and post your adventures.

Based in Amsterdam, this venture is helmed by a team of fervent globetrotters with a common objective - to simplify the art of travel journaling for passionate explorers worldwide.

Polarsteps paves the way for pre-logging your anticipated travel escapades into the app by plugging in your destinations and notable pointers.

As you venture into your journey, the app keeps track of your whereabouts, enabling you to append pictures and personal annotations that you wish to share. The app's standout feature is undoubtedly its capacity to transform your travel reminiscences into a distinct digital travel scrapbook.

This curated memoir encompasses all the destinations you visited, photographs you snapped, and the cherished memories you've penned down in the Polarsteps app.

The app can be accessed on both Android and iOS, or you can choose to log in via their website. It is free to download and utilize, making it accessible for all travel enthusiasts.

Who's Polarsteps for?

In short, if you're a traveler who likes to document their journey hassle-free, this app is made for you!

The real question is whether they're actually for you, or if it's just advertised for you.

I've asked up to 50 different individuals across several continents who've mentioned the app to me, and the general consensus was...

Most people keep the app downloaded similar to Google Maps to automatically track and document their journey. Some pay for its travel memory books, but most of them just use Polarsteps for its convenience in tracking the places you've been in the background.

Is the Polarsteps app free?

The Polarsteps app is free to download and use and you can give it a try right now on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store!

However, if you’d like to request a printed travel memory book, you’ll have to pay to have one custom-made, printed, and shipped to you.

How much does Polarsteps cost?

Polarsteps app, as previously mentioned, is completely free to download and use. The customizable and printed travel book comes with a cost.

For a 24 page book, you'll be paying a minimum of €30 (about $36 USD) up to €80 (about $97 USD) for their largest books. Memories are priceless, so it may be worth it for you to buy this. Not to mention, they have a crazy amount of customizations and personalizations you could do with your travel book that just might be worth it to those who’d like their very own travel scrapbook made for them!

For us though, we're happy with keeping our photos easily accessible and shareable online for free or getting to enjoy the experience of scrapbooking with friends and making our own.

How do you use Polarsteps?

1. plan your trip.

After creating an account, you can begin to plan your trips by selecting the location of the destination, adding steps along your desired route, and marking the main stops you intend to make along the way. However, I must say that as a trip planner, Polarsteps' features are very limited. ‍

2. Track your trip

Once you schedule the date and time of your trip, the app will handle most of the tasks for you. It automatically plots the route on a detailed map by constantly checking your whereabouts, marking the duration and distance at each step. The accuracy of trips depends on the mode you select; Ultra Light, Balanced, or High-Accuracy. 

While it adds many statistics this way, you can also comment about your experience using notes and photos in each step. As an example, if you want to make a note of your adventures like scuba diving in Australia or camping on Mt. Kilimanjaro, create a pin/stop and include your story.

3. Share your trips

I think one of the promising features Polarsteps offers is the ability to share your real-time location with your loved ones. It not only lets them be a part of it and envy it but also eases their worries about your existence. This way, you don’t have to wait until you reach home to shower your friends and family with details. You can also share your past trips with people and inspire fellow travelers.

In addition, you can get a printed version of your trips in the form of a book for 30-80 Euros. Instead of showing them a slideshow of your trip, print them a book. Speaking of the ultimate flex!

How to follow someone on Polarsteps

On every profile in Polarsteps you'll find a "Follow" button. On desktop, it's on the top right of the screen. On the Polarsteps app, it should be at the top of their profile.

You may want to share your profile with others if you're using Polarsteps. The easiest way to d this is to click the "share button", usually located next to or near the follow button depending on what platform you're on.

You can share the link to your travels with your friends and family with Polarsteps, and they can follow those trips directly from the link that's shared with them.

What I Liked About Polarsteps!

Curated print travel book.

This feature is by far the most important feature Polarsteps offer, and it's awesome! Polarsteps app tracks your trip, record your notes and anything else relevant, then modify it to offer you the ability to have your trip printed out and sent to you via their printing service . You get your own little travel book printed out and ready to share.

It's a nice touch but probably overkill for shorter trips and other budget or spontaneous travelers.

Battery friendly

The app doesn’t drain your battery a lot, and on average, requires only 4% for full-day tracking. It comes in handy when you don’t have access to charging sources very often. However, using GPS for high-accuracy tracking can drain the battery faster.

Internet connectivity not required

Polarsteps uses GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular signal to trace your route but an internet connection isn’t compulsory. So, if you want to lower data charges or don’t have connectivity, the app is still reliable to a certain degree.

The data collected offline will be synchronized once you go online.

Privacy options

The app gives you the complete license to manage who has access to your trips. There are three options, such as ‘only me,’ ‘my followers,’ and ‘public.' You have the option of changing your privacy settings for each trip.

Convenience

Since it starts tracking automatically, you don’t have to go through the hassle of monitoring it continuously. The app’s interface is not complex in design, which makes it easy to navigate and use.

Sharing & Cross-Device Access

In addition to sharing the trips with friends, you can also share them on social media directly. Also, it’s not necessary for people to have an account on Polarsteps to view their travel trips. You can send a private link to anyone you wish to share your journey with.

Polarsteps also recently launched the feature that supports the use of multiple devices on the same Polarsteps account, a feature heavily requests by Polarsteps users.

What Can Polarsteps Do Better?

• Glitches and bugs

Users seem to encounter some issues like the app crashing after using it for some time, loss of trip details, and the inability to edit your trip easily. However, not everyone seemed to have these problems.

Short of some nice-to-have features

It would be great if this tracking app also allows us to export our trips in PDF or similar formats, and geotags photos automatically. Other features have also been requested by reviews online, but many have since been developed and created!

Customized sharing for trip details

While you're able to customize sharing privacy options for each individual trips, a nice add-on feature to have is the ability to customize which parts of my trip I'd like to share, and to what degree.

Sharing the general details of my trip to my friends and family while keeping some of the more intimate and personal details to myself and/or my friends and family would be the most ideal in most scenario.

Is Polarsteps Worth it?

So, having delved into a thorough examination of the Polarsteps app, does it live up to the hype? Is Polarsteps app worth it, and should you invest in their customized, printed travel scrapbook?

In essence, the answer is yes! I perceive it as an excellent platform for curating unique and exciting memories from your travels, and it's definitely worth a shot! As the app is absolutely free, there's no harm in giving it a test run to see if it resonates with your preferences.

From the standpoint of travel planning, I am of the opinion that the app, in its current form, isn't adequately comprehensive to merit usage on its own. The app's feature set is lacking vital elements such as accommodation and flight bookings/tracking, which, in my view, are integral to an all-encompassing travel booking/tracking app.

However, if procuring a personalized travel scrapbook aligns with your budget and you're not keen on crafting your own, I wholeheartedly recommend giving it a whirl! The degree of customization is impressive, allowing you to create a truly unique design that reflects the essence of your travel adventures.

Our Rating: 4.6/5

• Personalized printed book
• Great battery efficiency
• Customizable privacy option
• Great sharing options
• Convenient to use
• Offline mode
• No trip planning feature
• App lacking additional features
• Synchronization Issues

Enhance your travel planning with Pilot!

Planning your travel journey seamlessly is important as tracking it accurately.

While Polarsteps offers you some basic features to plan your travel trips, it’s not well-equipped with extensive features to help you map out a foolproof plan for a hassle-free journey.

We’ve mentioned before that Polarsteps lack important features for a travel planning app , such as flight and accommodation bookings. 

If you like to plan an itinerary in a detailed, comprehensive, and of course, very enjoyable manner, you should try out our brand new social trip planner, Pilot!

Disclosure : Pilot is supported by our community. We may earn a small commission fee with affiliate links on our website. All reviews and recommendations are independent and do not reflect the official view of Pilot.

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The best trip planner apps to make your travels easier

Booking a trip can be an exciting yet daunting task. As if booking airfare, hotel, and transportation weren't enough, you also need to consider food, sights, and attractions. As a travel lover myself, I often dread planning and preparing for a trip. Not only do I never have the time, but I often get oversaturated by the vast amount of information found online and the fear of getting scammed. 

Also:  The best travel credit cards

Over the years, I've found the best websites and apps to help smooth out the planning process. These apps help me keep track of all my reservations, send me booking reminders, and guarantee I always find the best prices -- because there is nothing worse than falling for tourist traps or overpriced offerings. 

Whether you are a spontaneous or a nitty-gritty planner traveler, ZDNET has tested and reviewed the best trip planner apps on the market. Our top pick for the best trip planner site and app is Booking.com due to its easy-to-use user interface, extensive booking capabilities, and pricing. However, since not every trip or traveler is the same, we've included several options to help you plan and stay organized during your travels. 

Keep reading to learn more about ZDNET's expert-tested and reviewed trip planner apps. 

Also: The best travel gadgets

The best trip planner apps of 2023

Booking.com, best overall trip planner.

• Multiple bookings
• Great deals
• Can earn points from bookings and reservations
• Easy to use
• No group planning
• Can't organize bookings per trip

Booking.com features:   Platform: App and website |  Compatibility:  iOS and Android |  Pricing:  Free |  Booking:  Yes |  Group planning:  No

When planning my trips, I always make a stop at the Booking.com app, especially when reserving hotels. I find their user interface visually appealing and easy to use, and that it provides just the right amount of information I need when scrolling through hotel suggestions. Personally, I enjoy that I can add my top picks to my favorites with a quick tap of a heart, glance through reviews, look at cancellation policies, and even find out how far away hotels are from key spots. Through Booking.com, you can also book flights, car rentals, taxis, and city attractions, making it a great all-in-one place to plan and book upcoming weekend getaways or longer vacations. While I have personally never used the car rentals, taxis, or city attractions components of the app, I enjoy knowing that if I ever needed to, I can quickly hop on my phone and glance at the latest offerings. 

My favorite feature when using Booking.com to plan trips is the offers and promotions it displays for users. In the app, when you click your profile, you can see your "Genius" loyalty program status as well as discover the best deals around the world for your specific chosen dates. My only critique of Booking.com is that it does not enable group trip planning or let you organize your bookings per trip. This means if you are planning a trip with a friend, only one person can book and have access to reservations. 

Also: The best luggage

Best trip planner for organization

• Synced with e-mail inbox
• Organizes reservations no matter where you book
• Works offline
• Can't make any bookings
• Need to pay for advanced features
• UI could use an upgrade

TripIt features:   Platform:  App and website |  Compatibility: iOS and Android | Pricing: Free or $49 per year | Booking: No | Group planning: Yes

In terms of planning a trip, creating an itinerary, and keeping all your information in one place, TripIt is one of the best travel apps to keep yourself organized. When you first create an account, TripIt will sync with your inbox and automatically add all of your upcoming flights and reservations to your account. You can then modify each trip to include as little or as much information as you'd like. As someone who likes to be spontaneous when traveling, I usually only add the essentials: flight information, hotel reservations, and important documents. However, if you like to plan your trips down by the hour, you can also include activities, restaurant reservations, transportation, and more in your trip plan to share with fellow travelers.

As your trip approaches, TripIt will also send you packing reminders, give you COVID-19 travel guidance, and show transportation options. While you can get most of the essential features within the free version of the app (this is the one I use), you can also pay $49 a year to get advanced features such as check-in reminders, real-time flight alerts, point tracking, and even notifications for drops in airfare prices. 

Keep in mind that while TripIt gives you transportation options and finds places near your hotel, you cannot book or make any reservations directly from the app. The app is solely used to organize and keep track of all of your travel plans in one place, no matter where you book them. 

Best AI trip planner

• Personalized travel itinerary
• Hotel booking
• Can modify recommendations
• Group planning enabled
• Only available as a website
• No flight or restaurant booking

Guide features:   Platform: Website  Compatibility: all major browsers |  Pricing:  Free | Booking: Yes, but hotels only | Group Planning: Yes  Generative AI is everyone's favorite buzzword this year, and slowly but surely, it has been making its way across all industries -- including the travel industry. Guide is an innovative AI travel planning tool that creates personalized travel itineraries based on your preferences. (Full disclosure, it's also owned by ZDNET's sister company. It's currently in private beta, but you can join a wait list.) All you need to do is select your destination, the dates, whether you are traveling alone or in a group, your budget, and the types of activities you are looking for, and Guide will do the planning. 

After generating a trip itinerary for you based on your prompt, Guide then lets you modify and customize the itinerary to your liking. I recently used Guide to plan a six-day trip to Austin, Texas, and this was the feature I enjoyed the most, since I had specific restaurants and activities I wanted to incorporate into my trip, but I also needed some additional recommendations. While you can't book flights or restaurant reservations through Guide, you can book and find great hotel deals powered by Expedia on the platform. 

Guide will also give you an overall budget for your trip, a packing list, and a comprehensive list of things to know about your destination -- which may be helpful for some more than others. While my trip to Austin was a solo trip, Guide has a feature where you can invite other fellow travelers to collaborate in planning your trip through Guide's chatbot, GuideBot. This chatbot also works sort of like ChatGPT, where you can ask GuideBot questions about your trip, your destination, or recommendations. Keep in mind you can not ask GuideBot to directly modify your trip for you, and instead need to manually do it yourself -- believe me, I tried. 

Tripadvisor

Best trip planner app for reviews.

• Countless reviews
• Used by travelers worldwide
• Variety of information
• Booking capabilities
• Great for local spots
• Booking is not its strongest feature and you may not always find the best deals
• Doesn't vet reviews

Tripadvisor  features: Platform:  App and website |  Compatibility:  iOS and Android |  Pricing:  Free |  Booking:  Yes |  Group planning:  No

Reading customer reviews is one of the most important steps when planning a trip. While you shouldn't base all of your decisions on reviews, you should consider past customer experiences to get a feel for the brand and company you are about to trust, or the experience you are going to pay for.  When it comes to travel reviews, Tripadvisor is the best trip planner app to rely on. Since the platform has so many reviews for restaurants, activities, accommodations, and locations all over the world, it is always easy and convenient to log onto the app or website to help you make an educated decision. (However, remember that not all Tripadvisor reviews are legit, since the platform does not independently verify customer postings.) Beyond reviews, TripAdvisor also lets you book hotels, restaurants, things to do, and more while also providing detailed insights into their offerings -- including cancellation policies, ratings, and features. 

Tripadvisor's "Travelers' Choice" best-of list is also a popular part of its platform, allowing visitors to see top-rated destinations, hotels, restaurants, and things to do around the world. With Tripadvisor, you can plan a trip yourself from scratch, hire a trip designer, or get a custom itinerary built by AI. 

Best trip planner app for transportation

• Great multi-mode travel comparison
• convenient and seamless transportation booking
• Multiple currency and language availability
• Flight deals and suggestions are not the strongest
• Limited offers depending on the country or city of travel
• Not the most reliable customer service

Omio features:  Platform:  App and website |  Compatibility:  iOS and Android |  Pricing:  Free |  Booking:  Yes, transportation only |  Group planning:  No

I first discovered Omio when a friend recommended it to me while I was studying abroad in Spain, and ever since I downloaded it, it has become my go-to app for booking the best deals and fares on transportation within Europe. The concept behind Omio is simple: You plug in your departure and arrival location, including the number of people you are traveling with, and add whether you are looking for a one-way or round-trip journey. Omio will then show you the best deals by train, bus, or plane to and from your desired destination, including how much time each option will take you and the number of stops. 

The German-based travel booking site is great at aggregating travel information from multiple sites, allowing you to view all of your transportation options in one place. This is incredibly beneficial when planning trips within Europe since there are several ways you can cross each border and often various languages and regulations to keep in mind. Omio is set in English but has multiple additional languages available, as well as currency options. During my time abroad, I solely used Omio to book all of my transportation, including planning a 17-day trip across seven different European countries. Overall, using Omio was not only convenient and seamless but also helped me save hundreds of dollars by helping me maximize my travel time by switching between flights, trains, and buses. 

However, since returning from Europe, I have not used Omio as much as I thought I would -- maybe because I have a car and take most of my trips by plane. And Omio's flight deals and suggestions are not the strongest compared to Booking.com or Skyscanner's, which heavily focus on flight deals. I have also found they have some limitations depending on the country or city you are traveling in. Be mindful of the deals and tickets you buy through Omio since some tickets are non-refundable, and some customers complain their customer service is not the best -- although I have yet to have any issues with them. 

What is the best trip planner app?

Booking.com gets our vote for the best trip planner app due to its wide selection of accommodations, its points and promotions offerings, and its easy-to-use user interface. Not only does Booking.com help you find the best deals throughout your trip, but it will also help you stay organized throughout your trip by keeping all of your reservations in one place. To determine which trip planner app or combination of trip planners is best for you, check out this comparison chart below. 

Which is the right trip planner app for you?

The best trip planner app ultimately depends on your travel and planning style. If you like booking and planning everything in one place while also earning points and getting great deals, then Booking.com is your top app. However, if you are looking for a place to keep all of your accommodations, reservations, and activity details organized, then TripIt is a better app for you. Check out the following chart to help you find the best trip planner app or a combination of apps for you to plan your next adventure. 

How did we choose these trip planner apps?

To find the best trip planner apps, we drew upon real-life experiences and tested their performance and capabilities during our latest trips. Ultimately, we weighted the following factors when choosing which trip planners to include on our list: 

• Features: Each app can vary significantly with the features it offers, whether it is solely to book flights and hotels, help you plan your next trip using AI, or help you find the best deals and booking information, each app on this list can help you address several common inconveniences that present themselves while planning that next adventure.  
• Compatibility: An app is of little use if it does not work with your devices, so we look to see what compatibility each trip-planning app offers and which platforms you can access it from. Personally, I enjoy apps that combine an app and website component since this quickly helps me switch between my wide computer screen and my tiny yet portable iPhone screen. 
• Customer reviews: We study real customer reviews and ratings to evaluate customer satisfaction and service. This is incredibly important since most times when you travel, you visit an unknown city or country, and you should be mindful of past experiences others have had. 
• Cost : Most trip planner apps are free, but you may have to upgrade to receive special access to exclusive features or deals. If your app is already free, it means you only have to pay a small amount (often unnoticeable) when you book your accommodations. 

What is a trip planner app?

A trip planner app is an app that provides organizational features for your upcoming trip. It is often free and incorporates trip planning tools, whether you are traveling by ground, water or air.   

How does a trip planner app work?

A trip planner app can incorporate special features, like an itinerary, calendar, reservation and booking hub, and map assistance. Depending on the app you choose, there is even trip-sharing with friends and family to simplify the entire trip planning process.  

How much does a trip planner app cost?

Most trip planner apps are free, but some may offer in-app purchases to upgrade or enhance your experience. Within this list, only Tripit costs money, but only for their advanced features version, which costs $49 a year. However, you can get access to most if not all, trip-planning features, through their free version. 

Are there alternative trip planner apps worth considering?

As I mentioned earlier, trip planning heavily depends on your personal style of travel and preferences. However, whether you like to plan your trips down by the minute or prefer to just have the basics, there are several apps that can optimize your planning. Here are a few apps worth considering that almost made it onto our list: 

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Polarsteps Review

As overlanders , we know the importance of a travel journal. There were times when a physical diary would work for that. But nowadays, a myriad of travel logging apps are available out there. 

And, you can install them on your phone for free and start tracking your adventures effortlessly . One of those travel tracker apps is Polarsteps. It comes with a plethora of handy features that every overlander and explorer will love.

In fact, we have been using this app extensively on our trips all around the world for a long time. And, we are loving it. In this post, we will share a comprehensive review of Polarsteps to let you know whether it is worth it or not.

Review of Polarsteps App

The essential features of polarsteps, track your travels automatically.

The primary feature of Polarsteps is to track your trips all over the world automatically. You will just need to add a New Trip to the app by tapping the ‘+’ icon at the top. In the process, you can add a trip name, trip summary, start date, end date, share the trips with others, and more.

You can also enable the ‘Travel Tracker’ option for tracking travel for that trip. So, from the start date of the trip, the app will begin to track your position automatically in the background. And, Polarsteps will suggest you to add any new locations you are traveling during that period.

It is up to you whether you want to add that particular location or not. In the app, each location is referred to as ‘step’. To add a suggestion, simply tap on ‘Add step’ and to remove tap on ‘Discard’.

You can also add pictures, videos, notes, etc. to each location. And, the entire trip route will be marked on a vibrant and detailed map inside the application to give you a great visual about the trips.

Plan Your Trips

Polarsteps also have an itinerary planner feature. You can easily plan your future trips using this travel journal app.

In the process, you can add the possible date and the location of the journey and save it. So, when the date arrives, it will start to track travel automatically. You can also add past trips manually.

Share Your Travel Log

You can share the trips with your followers, friends, and family directly from Polarsteps. Similarly, you can also follow other explorers around the world.

Travel Statistics

This travel journal app creates real-time detailed travel stats . Here, you will find the number and flags of countries you visited, trip duration, total distance covered, and more.

Additional Features

Not power hungry.

Interestingly, Polarsteps is very battery-friendly. According to the developers, it consumes just about 4% additional battery power compared to normal use.

It uses Wi-Fi, cellular signal, and GPS to track your position . We will talk about this feature in detail down below.

Privacy First

With Polarsteps, it is up to you whether you want to share your trips with others or not. Also, you can select the specific group of people (friends/family/others/public) you want to share your travel log with.

This is especially useful in regions where sharing your live position might be a bit dangerous .

Additionally, it also supports sharing travel information directly to social media sites like Facebook , WhatsApp, Instagram , etc.

Works Offline

Polarsteps works just fine offline. That means you don’t have to worry about excessive data roaming charges while abroad.

There is no need to be connected to the internet to track your location using Polarsteps. It will synchronize the data only when you get back online to save both data charges and battery life.

Unique Travel Stats

Polarsteps deliver a few unique travel statistics like the percentage of the world you have visited until now, how many days you haven’t traveled for, and the furthest point from home.

No Account Needed For the Viewers

Another handy feature of this travel tracker application is that other people don’t need to have an account to see your map and trip. You can share links to any of your trips to your friends or family via the ‘Invite your family and friends’ option from the app.

That way, a secret link will be shared with that person. And, with that link, they can follow along with you on your trip without having to open an account on Polarsteps or installing the application itself.

And, if the trip creator has made their trips public, then anybody can view their trip or map by searching on the Polarsteps website.

Getting Started With Polarsteps

It is very easy to get started with Polarsteps. As usual, first, you have to install the Polarsteps travel journal app on your phone if you haven’t already.

Then you need to create an account with them. To do that, you can use an email address. 

Or else, you also have the option to use your Facebook account to sign up. Or else, you can also login directly using your Facebook account as well.

Then you will be on the homepage of the app. From there, you can start to plan trips and track them on the map.

User Interface

In short, the user interface is good looking and easy to navigate. However, we have seen some other similar travel journal apps with a more modern look.

But the current UI of Polarsteps is not a deal-breaker either. You can easily get the hang of it after a couple of days.

The best thing about Polarsteps is that it is a free app. You can install this travel journal app on your smart devices without spending a penny.

For an app that is free, it packs a host of features that are advanced and rare to find even in many similar paid travel journal apps.

Ease of Use

Overall, the application is very beginner-friendly. Every important thing is available on the homepage. And, you can easily access the settings. 

On top of that, as it tracks the trips automatically, you don’t even have to manually input anything. Rather, you can enjoy the journey while the application will do its job in the background.

Create a Travel Book

Another cool feature of this travel tracking app is that you can order a photo book from Polarsteps for a certain fee.

And, the hardcover photo book will contain your stories, travel route, travel stats, photos, and more the application has tracked over the years. You can choose the layout, design, pictures, and what to/not to include in the travel book.

A lot of users have ordered their own travel book. And, they are overwhelmed by the quality and the value it has provided them. If you want to have a souvenir of your journey, then this photo book is a must-buy.

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Compatibility

Polarsteps mobile app is available on both iOS and Android. This is great as you can use this application on most of the smartphones available out there.

For the Android version, you will need to have Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) or up to run this app on your Android smartphone.

And, in the case of iOS, this is not only compatible with the iPhone, but also can be used with iPad, iPod Touch, etc. For iOS device users, you will need to have at least iOS 10.0 or watchOS 4.3 or up.

Chances are, your iOS or Android device is already up to date to be compatible with this travel journal app.

Additionally, you can access your Polarsteps account on their website too . The desktop version of Polarsteps might not have all the features of the mobile app.

But it works great if you want to relive the memories of your past trips on a bigger display than your smartphone. To access that, you will have to just visit the official website of Polarsteps and log in to your account.

Support & Update

Even though this is a free travel journal app, the support system of Polarsteps is beyond great.

Whenever you are having issues with the app, you can leave your complaint as a review in the App Store or Play Store or their support email. 

Most of the time, they will reply to your queries. At the same time, they have over 100 how-to and tutorial articles on their official support page.

Over the years, they have also been updating the app regularly.

What Other Users Said?

Right now, it has 4.7 and 4.8 rating out of 5 in the Google Play Store and Apple App Store respectively. And, millions of people are using the application all over the world.

So, from the feedback of the users, you can see that it is one of the most popular travel journal apps in the world.

Like the other users, we are also extremely delighted by Polarsteps. It has become a regular companion on our overlanding trips over the years.

With this app, it became so easy to track our adventurers. We liked that it is free, works offline, and tracks automatically.

• Works offline
• Tracks automatically
• Battery-friendly
• Easy to use
• Travel information can be turned to a physical hardcover photo book
• The user interface could be better (not a disadvantage really)

What Are The Alternatives Of Polarsteps?

There are many good alternatives to the Polarsteps app. For instance, you might have heard of FindPenguins, VOLO, Bonjournal, etc.

But how does Polarsteps fare against these apps? In this section, we will compare Polarsteps with both VOLO and FindPenguins.

FindPenguins vs. Polarsteps

Simply put, both of these apps are almost identical in their functions and features. Both these apps can keep track of any trip automatically without draining much battery life.

You don’t need an internet connection for that. Both Polarsteps and FindPenguins also offer the service to turn a trip into a premium photo book. And, these are free applications as well.

However, FindPenguins come with in-app purchases. That means you can get access to many restricted features after you pay a certain amount of subscription fee. For the record, FindPenguins have both monthly and yearly membership plans. 

The monthly and yearly subscription fees of FindPenguins Android version are $4.99 and $32.99 respectively. For the iOS version, it is $4.49/monthly and $29.99/yearly. To be noted, the price might vary based upon the location of the user.

Furthermore, most users find the user interface, icons, and layout of this one more attractive and modern looking compared to Polarsteps. Conversely, FindPenguins charges more for the photo book compared to Polarsteps.

In that sense, we think Polarsteps is the better option as it is user-friendly, low-cost, and has a larger user base compared to FindPenguins.

VOLO vs. Polarsteps

VOLO is also another competitor of Polarsteps. This one comes with a lot of similar features to Polarsteps.

For instance, you can keep track of your trips, add photos/notes/comments to the trips, and share your stories, and so on with VOLO. Like Polarsteps, it also supports offline tracking. And this is also a free app.

But according to its users, there are a lot of drawbacks to the app. Matter of fact, VOLO has got a rating of just 2.9 out of 5 in the App Store and only 2.5 in the Google Play Store. They have mentioned that it was a great application in previous years. 

But nowadays it is full of bugs and it doesn’t work as it is supposed to. So, for tracking your travel log, you should not rely on this app. Once again, we think Polarsteps would be the best option compared to VOLO.

How Does Polarsteps Work?

You might have already guessed that Polarsteps uses GPS on your phone like any other travel journal app.

But you also may have heard that it uses a lot less battery power compared to other apps that use the GPS functionality of your phone. But how?

Interestingly, Polarsteps use 3 things to determine the position of you. And those are GPS, Wi-Fi, and your cellular signal. In the Android version of the app, you can actually choose between 3 travel tracker modes such as Ultra Light, Balanced, and High Accuracy.

Here, the Ultra Light mode uses both Wi-Fi and cellular signal data to track a trip. This way, it will update the location data slowly and the accuracy will be low in this case.

This mode will come in handy if you are in a remote place where you will have no way to charge your phone for the time being.

The Balanced mode is the recommended mode from Polarsteps. It also uses both Wi-Fi and cellular signal but provides more accurate tracking information.

On the other hand, if you have the means to charge your device anytime and want the most accurate information, then you can use the High Accuracy mode.

In this mode, Polarsteps will use GPS in the background, which will drain your battery faster but will offer very thorough details about a trip.

To be noted, you can also disable the Travel Tracker option in the app temporarily. Remember, Polarsteps only synchronize the data when your phone is connected to the internet/Wi-Fi. That way, it can save your battery life to a greater extent.

For even more accuracy you can connect your phone with the pocket sized Bad Elf personal tracker . This little device will make sure your position is accurate in the remotest corners of the Planet as well.

How Much Does Polarsteps Cost?

As mentioned previously, the ‘Polarsteps’ is totally free to use. You can install it from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store according to the phone you use for free.

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Is Polarsteps App Free?

Yes . The Polarsteps app is totally free. You can use the application without spending any money. Also, they don’t show ads on their application to monetize it.

Add in the fact, you can also access the desktop version of Polarsteps on their official website for free.

What Is The Best Travel Diary App?

There are several travel diary apps available out there. Most of them come with almost similar features and functions.

However, only a few travel journal apps are there that stand out. And among them, ‘ Polarsteps – Travel Planner & Tracker ’ is one of a kind.

It is easy to use, offers premium features, and free of cost. Also, we have been using this application for an extensive period of time over the years without any issues.

We can say that we are totally satisfied with the service of Polarsteps. Thus, in our opinion, Polarsteps is the best travel diary app right now.

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10 Best Travel TRIP PLANNER APPs To Have in 2024

In a fast-paced world where the stress of work and school is overwhelming, we all need a break to de-stress our minds. Traveling is one good way to take your mind off of stressful things – a breather. And a scheduled vacation gives you something to look forward to.

Whether it’s a local trip alone, a family holiday, or a getaway with your best friends, it just excites you to wish the day would come faster. 

10 Best Trip Planner Apps in 2024

The freeform app.

• TripIt: Travel Planner

Hopper – Flight & Hotel Deals

• Sygic Travel Maps Trip Planner

Roadtrippers: Trip Planner

Tripadvisor, travelspend: track travel expense & trip budget, tripcase – travel organizer app, travel planning apps for your next trip.

The Freeform app is an endless whiteboard that lets users add information from a variety of websites, photos, videos and files.

Because the boards are kept in iCloud, they can be accessed from any device anytime inspiration hits. While you and your travel companions plan your dream trip, the specifics can be shared with several individuals working together on the same whiteboard, making them an ongoing work in progress.

The Freeform app is free to iPhone users on iOS 16.2, iPad users on 16.2, and Mac users on Ventura MacOS Venture 13.1. 

Download the brand-new app here .

Read our full post: Apple Launches New Travel App Freeform – What to Know

Wanderlog Trip Planner App

Wanderlog is your all-in-one destination for planning future trips, sharing travel guides, and blogging past trips.

Its trip planning features are incredibly flexible: you can research destinations and activities, organize reservations by connecting your email, and map out a day itinerary with start/end times. You can also add notes and links all throughout.

Everything is stored offline so you can access your itinerary when traveling abroad. For road trips, it calculates the time and distance between places and exports them to Google Maps (and there are no limits to the number of stops you have on a trip!).

Plus, there’s a fun social component: collaborate with friends on itineraries, write your own travel guide, and blog about past trips. Wanderlog is available on the web and on your smartphone, so you can seamlessly plan while at home and on-the-go.

iOS  /  Android

TripIt: Trip Planner App

If you need any help organizing the dozens of itineraries, TripIt is the app for you. Users simply need to forward your flight, hotel, restaurant, and car rental confirmation emails to [email protected] and the app will create a free master doc for each of your trips. The best thing about this app is that you can get access to your itinerary anywhere, even without an internet connection. 

In addition, the Pro version will find you alternative routes for canceled flights and send out notifications for delayed flights, cancellations, and more from the airlines. 

iOS / Android

Rome2rio is a versatile travel planning app that simplifies the process of finding and booking travel options. It’s a handy tool for travelers seeking to explore various transportation choices between destinations. Rome2rio offers users a comprehensive view of travel options, including flights, trains, buses, ferries, and even driving directions.

Key features of Rome2rio include:

• Route Information: The app provides detailed information on different routes, including estimated travel times, costs, and the number of transfers required.
• Booking Integration: Users can book flights, train tickets, and other transportation options directly through the app, streamlining the booking process.
• Map Integration: Rome2rio integrates with maps, allowing users to visualize their travel routes and explore nearby attractions.
• Multi-Modal Travel: It offers options for combining various modes of transportation, making it easy to plan complex journeys.
• Accurate Pricing: The app provides real-time pricing information, helping users make informed decisions based on their budget.
• Offline Access: Rome2rio offers offline access to previously searched routes, which can be handy when traveling without a data connection.

Hopper is an amazing trip planner app to have on your phone. The app predicts airfares up to 1 year in advance, with 95% accuracy. It analyzes over billions of flight prices and hotels within the day – telling you whether to book your trip now or wait for just a little longer.

Here’s how it works: Key in your destination and a color-coded calendar will display the cheapest and most expensive date to fly. The app will then recommend you to either book the flight now or sit it out and wait for airfare to get cheaper. Also, you can filter predictions to custom-fit your trip – remove long layovers, extra fees, restrictions, and more. 

And if you worry about missing out the cheap flight bookings, don’t be! Hopper will send you a notification when fares have dropped to its lowest point.

SYGIC Travel Maps Trip Planner

Sygic Travel Maps , the new version of Sygic Trip Planner, is the first travel app to display all of the attractions and places a traveler needs to see and visit on a single map.

Sync your trips with the Sygic Travel app and find hidden gems in all cities you visit. The app boast a large database that allows you to find the best hotels, tourist attractions, museums, restaurants, bars, and stores wherever you go.

This mobile app also let you download offline maps and guides, which come in helpful when traveling to remote locations with poor or non-existing Wi-Fi.

It also has a dedicated section to worldwide places of interest for travel business. Get location information for individual cities, countries, continents, or the entire planet.

The app is available in 18 languages.

iOS / Android iOS

Planning on a cross-country road trip ? Roadtrippers is the app for you! Not everyone is fond of waiting long hours at the airport while sitting through your red-eye flight. Hit the road with your friends instead.

Roadtrippers provides everything you need to know on your road trip. Just enter your starting point, destination, and let the app do its work for you! From camping sites to rest stops, outdoor activities, exciting adventures along the way that you didn’t know existed. This app is the perfect buddy for your road trip regardless of your mode of transportation – a sedan, a rental car, or a huge family RV.

Most of us dream of going to places! But planning an amazing trip to places we have not been to is pretty hard as you don’t know where to stay, what to do, places to eat, and adventures to try. We mostly rely on recommendations, most of which are not even right, that we find online. 

TripAdvisor has over millions of travel recommendations on hotels, top dining spots, must-do experiences, and treasured gems to over 8 million destinations at your perusal. It is an all-in-one app that lets you book tables at restaurants and compares low prices on hotels and flights.

You can also follow friends and travel experts for advice that match your interests, watch videos, and read articles. In return, you can share your experiences, reviews, and helpful guides for other users too!

Setting up a budget for your trip is easy, however, sticking to it is hard. TravelSpend will help you with that. It starts with entering your budget and expenses over multiple days so you don’t go overboard. The app helps you in sticking to your budget effectively.

Being in another country is not a problem at all: enter your expenses in any currency and the app will automatically convert it to your home currency.

Track your travel expenses whether going on a solo around-the-world trip or backpacking holiday with your best friends. The app allows you to share your trip with your friends and track your expenses together. Pay debts, split bills, and check your balances – all in the app!

TripCase, a comprehensive travel organizer app, has emerged as a popular choice among travelers seeking a streamlined and efficient way to manage their journey details.

Here’s a breakdown of its key features and functionalities:

Centralized Itinerary Management : TripCase allows users to consolidate all their travel details, including flights, hotels, and car rentals, into a single, easily accessible itinerary.

Real-time Flight Alerts : The app keeps travelers informed with up-to-the-minute notifications on flight statuses, including delays, cancellations, and gate changes.

Itinerary Sharing : TripCase offers a sharing option that enables users to send their travel plans to friends, family, or colleagues.

Travel Directions and Maps : To aid navigation in unfamiliar locations, the app provides directions and maps.

Nearby Recommendations : TripCase offers recommendations for restaurants, attractions, and other services close to the traveler’s location.

Document Storage : For added convenience, the app allows users to store essential travel documents digitally, ensuring that important information like passport details, visas, and insurance policies are readily available.

Customizable Notifications : Users can customize their notification preferences, choosing what types of alerts they receive and how they are notified, tailoring the app to suit individual needs and preferences.

iOS / Android 

Hi, great List. I couldn’t travel without my Apps! I have one App you could check out =) Its called ” ATM Fee Saver” and it gives a list with all ATMs and their fees and limit. I found it super helpful and it really helped me to save some money. Best regards, Charlotte

Thank you for your suggestions! Those apps are very useful and various

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The 4 Best Luggage Trackers of 2024, Tested and Reviewed

Never lose luggage again with these easy-to-use tracking devices.

In This Article

• Our Top Picks
• Others We Liked

Our Testing Process

• Tips for Buying
• Why Trust T+L

Travel + Leisure / David Hattan

Losing luggage before (or after) a trip can put a damper on any experience. While there is no way to prevent airlines from misplacing your luggage, using a luggage tracker is one of the best travel hacks for making the process easier if your suitcase doesn’t make it on a flight.

To recommend the best luggage trackers on the market, we tested eight different devices from trusted tech brands. After flying with all of the luggage trackers, we chose the top three trackers that were effortless to set up, accurately located our luggage, and were extremely useful for offering peace of mind while traveling. Our top pick might surprise you, so keep reading to learn more about what qualities we looked for in a luggage tag.

Best Overall

Eufy smarttrack link.

• Ease of Setup 5 /5
• Accuracy 5 /5
• Functionality 5 /5
• Design 4.5 /5

It pairs seamlessly with an iPhone and costs much less than AirTags.

The locator sound on the device could be louder.

Eufy’s luggage tracker edged out the popular Apple AirTags during testing by impressing us with the same (if not slightly better) features at a much lower price point. The device came ready to go and all we had to do was open the Find My app on an iPhone and the tracker automatically connected for hassle-free setup. Throughout our four-month tests, we used the tracker on eight different flights and every time we could see that our luggage was on the airplane before take-off, providing peace of mind en route to our final destination. In between trips, we simply left the tracker in the suitcase, so it was ready for our next adventure.

The device itself is thin and small, but not too small that it could get lost easily, so you can feel safe using it in a wallet or purse on a trip. One of our favorite traits is the hole in the upper corner that can be directly attached to a keychain or lanyard to keep track of car or house keys instead. Plus, the tracker is water-resistant and didn’t get damaged during travels, even after we tucked it into the bottom of a 50-pound checked suitcase. 

The Details: 1.46 x 1.46 x 0.26 inches | Replaceable lithium coin battery | No subscription fee | iOS compatible only | Water-resistant 

Travel + Leisure / Anna Popp

Best for Everyday Use

Apple airtag.

• Accuracy 2.5 /5
• Functionality 4 /5
• Design 5 /5

The device is about the size and weight of a quarter, which makes it easy to use to track all types of items.

Over the course of our four-month tests, we did have issues with location accuracy as the AirTag can lose connection quite easily.

The small size of an Apple AirTag is ideal for keeping track of your items without noticing the device is tucked away. Since the tags are about the size of a quarter, they can fit in a suitcase, purse, or wallet with ease, and the metal material feels particularly durable compared to the other plastic models we tried. Made by Apple, the device pairs to an iPhone within seconds and is tracked via the Find My app, where users can also change the name of the device if there is more than one. With the popularity of AirTags , there are tons of compatible accessories (beyond placing them in luggage), including passport covers, wallets, keychains, and wristbands for kids. The biggest downside we experienced with the AirTag is that it didn’t accurately provide the location of the luggage and it spooked us several times with messages saying that luggage was left behind while we were taxiing on the tarmac. Although the AirTag wasn’t our top pick, we still think it’s an excellent option to help prevent lost bags . 

The Details: 1.6 x 1.6 x 0.31 inches | Replaceable lithium coin batteries | No subscription fee | iOS compatible only

Best Subscription

Tile pro bluetooth tracker.

• Ease of Setup 4.5 /5
• Accuracy 4 /5

You can use this device to track items for free, but the paid subscription offers worthwhile features for some travelers.

The device requires the Tile app and it wasn’t very intuitive to navigate for setup — even after four months of testing, we found the separate app to be annoying.

The Tile Pro Bluetooth Tracker offers the same basic functionality as the other devices we tried, including the ability to see the location of the device on an app. However, frequent fliers will appreciate the ability to upgrade the features of this device by getting one of the two premium plans offered by Tile that cost $30 or $100 per year depending on the plan (you can get the first year for free when you purchase the tracker through Tile). The premium subscription comes with smart alerts to tell you when the device isn’t in range, 30-day location history, and reimbursement for lost items that Tile can’t track with options for $100 or $1,000 reimbursement for either the premium or premium protection plan. 

For travelers who just want to use the Tile tracker as is, we were impressed with the durable and functional design of the plastic fob. It comes with a hole in it so you can use it for keys and wallets along with luggage, too. We had some slight issues setting up the device with the Tile app, but once we started messing around with it, it got easier to navigate over time.

The Details: 2.32 x 1.32 x 0.3 inches | Replaceable lithium metal batteries | Subscription fee | Android, iOS, and Smart Home compatible | Water-resistant

Best for Android Users

Samsung galaxy smarttag2.

It's easy to use and comes with a keychain that you can attach to just about any item.

The button is quite sensitive, so you may accidentally trigger the alarm if it's in a bag, purse, or pocket.

For Android users who are looking for a luggage tracker than can be used while on vacation and for everyday needs, the latest SmartTag from Samsung is a great choice. While it does require an app to use, the set-up process was easy and intuitive. Plus, there is no subscription required to use the SmartTag2 and the battery lasts over 500 days, so you really don't need to think of the device often after you attach it to your suitcase, purse, bag, or keys.

Throughout our tests, the device was very accurate for tracking location and it never lost connection. It's also small and lightweight, so you can easily attach it to just about any item you may want to track. The SmartTag also comes with a case and keychain for extra durability and convenience.

The Details: 2.06 x 1.13 x 0.31 inches | Replaceable lithium metal batteries | Android | Water-resistant

Other Luggage Trackers We Liked

The luggage tracker highlighted below didn’t quite make the cut, but we’re giving it an honorable mention after a solid performance in testing.

Dynotag Brushed Stainless Steel Smart Tag : This luggage tag isn’t technically a tracker since there isn’t a feature to locate the device, but if someone found it, the QR code would easily put them into contact with the owner of the luggage. 

To test eight luggage trackers, we traveled with every device in a checked bag over the course of four months to see how well each one performed based on ease of use, functionality, accuracy, and design. We also tested some of the trackers for everyday use to keep track of wallets, keychains, and headphones. 

First, we set up each device according to the instructions (or lack thereof) to see how easy or difficult it was to get started. After setting up the devices, we placed them in checked luggage and flew to various destinations, including routes with multiple layovers, to ensure our luggage made it onto the flights. In the end, our favorite luggage trackers were simple and intuitive to set up, accurately displayed the location of the item, and had a sleek and functional design meant for tracking luggage and other items while traveling.

Tips for Buying a Luggage Tracker

Make sure it’s compatible with your device.

The tricky thing about buying a luggage tracker is that not all of them are compatible with all operating systems. In general, most trackers can connect with just iOS or Android, but there are a few options that can connect with both. It’s almost always listed in the specifications section of the product so you’ll want to double-check before purchasing a tracker.

Consider where and how you’ll be using it

Tracking devices are ideal for luggage, but they can also work well for keys, wallets, passports, purses, and more whether you’re on the road or at home. For travelers looking for a tracking device for wallets and passports, we recommend the Apple AirTag since there are tons of travel accessories made to hold the device and they are also slim enough to fit anywhere. For keys or AirPods, consider getting a tag with a hole designed for attaching the device to keychains or rings.

Frequently Asked Questions

Luggage trackers use Bluetooth and GPS signaling to relay the location of the device back to a phone or tablet. Even if you’re thousands of miles away, the tracker can usually display a location on a map on your device, which is particularly useful if your luggage gets lost in transit .

Although luggage trackers often have lithium batteries, they are still allowed in checked and carry-on bags. The FAA doesn’t allow rechargeable lithium batteries with more than 100 watt hours per battery, but, luckily, tracking devices have less than that. 

Why Trust Travel + Leisure 

T+L commerce writer Anna Popp writes most of the team’s articles where all of the products were tested in our lab or in a real-world setting. She participated in this real-world test and she still uses her Eufy, Apple, and Tile tracking devices every time she flies. Anna combed through testing notes and used her expertise of almost always checking in a bag to recommend the best luggage trackers.

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Related Articles

The 19 Best Travel Planning Apps for Every Type of Traveler

December 1, 2021 15 min read

Planning your next travel adventure can be both exciting and stressful. While searching for amazing destinations and attractions to visit is always fun, keeping track of all of the information relating to your trip isn’t the easiest task. 

If you’ve been using Google docs and sheets or simply storing travel inspiration, confirmations, bookings, and reservations in your email, there’s a better way: using a travel planning app! 

You can discover an array of travel itinerary apps on the market, such as Wanderlog , a free and easy-to-use travel itinerary planner. But deciding which is best for your needs can be challenging. To help, we’ve put together this list of the 19 best travel planner apps on the market. 

To create this guide, we started by searching for the top trip planners online and in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. We then tested these apps and looked at user reviews to create this ultimate list of the best travel planning apps. This extensive list includes a range of apps, from road trip planning apps to itinerary planning apps. No matter what type of traveler you are, we have you covered. 

If you’re looking for a way to simplify travel planning and organization, keep reading! 

Best Overall Travel Planner App: Wanderlog 

We truly believe that Wanderlog is the best overall travel itinerary planning app on the market. Wanderlog allows you to plan detailed day-by-day itineraries, import all of your trip information, and search activity suggestions. It’s also perfect for group travelers and those traveling via a range of transport methods, from flying to taking a road trip. 

You can use Wanderlog in-browser, or download the app for iOS and Android. Wanderlog is 100% free to use, and this free version offers access to almost all of the apps’ features. There is an upgrade option, Wanderlog Pro, that offers added benefits with a one-week free trial.

Wanderlog Features

Activity Suggestions and Access to Pre-Created Trips 

You can search third-party websites and add things to do to your itinerary from online guides, like Tripadvisor or Google Trips. Wanderlog also offers activity suggestions, and you can view trips created by other users for inspiration. 

Storage and Organization of Travel Information 

When using Wanderlog, you can manually add travel information or automatically import reservations, bookings, and other email confirmations by syncing with Gmail. This travel information includes flight info, bus or train reservations,  accommodation details, rental car confirmations, and more. You can also add expenses for places and items on your itinerary, and manage your total budget.

Itinerary Creation 

As you upload travel information and add activities you want to undertake on your trip, a day-by-day itinerary will be created. This itinerary is incredibly easy to edit, and you can add notes to each stop. 

If you don’t need a day-by-day itinerary and want more flexibility in your plans, you can simply create lists, for example, a list of things to do or restaurants to try. 

Access to Maps 

When you add stops to your itinerary or lists, they’ll be displayed on a map. The map feature makes it easy to see where all the attractions you wish to visit are located, allowing you to plan the most efficient itinerary. 

Road Trip Planning

Wanderlog now offers the ability to plan road trips! You can add start and end destinations, plus unlimited stops along the way, and your road trip route will be shown on interactive maps. 

It’s super easy to rearrange these plans, and you can even use our “Road Trip Optimizer” to generate the most efficient route. The total time and distance of your road trip journey will be displayed too.  

Group Collaboration 

Wanderlog makes collaborating with others in your travel group a breeze! You can easily collaborate with others traveling with you by simply adding their email to your trip. Alternatively, you can just share a link to the itinerary. Having done this, all members of your group can collaborate on the plans in real-time. 

Wanderlog Pro Added Features

• Offline access to itineraries and maps
• Exporting of maps to Google Maps
• Auto scanning of travel confirmations in Gmail
• Road trip route optimization  

Who Is Wanderlog For? 

Wanderlog is the best app to plan travel for every type of traveler. From solo travelers to groups, and from the highly organized traveler to those that simply need one place to store information and activity suggestions. Wanderlog also has a highly user-friendly interface, and best of all, it’s free to use! 

Who Is Wanderlog Not For? 

Wanderlog is great for all travelers! Whether you want to organize your travel details, search for an array of activities to enjoy on your trip, or collaborate with fellow travelers, the Wanderlog travel planning app won’t disappoint. 

Does Wanderlog sound like the travel itinerary planner for you? Download the app today ! 

Best Road Trip Planning App: Roadtrippers

If you’re looking for road trip planner apps, Roadtrippers is one of the best options out there! This app is created exclusively for those traveling via car. It not only maps out the best routes for you to follow but also offers suggestions of things to do along the way. 

Roadtrippers can be used online and via their iPhone and Android app. Roadtrippers offers a free Basic version and a paid-for version called RoadTrippers Plus, which costs $29.99 per year.  

Roadtrippers Features

Custom Route Maps

Roadtrippers calculate the best route for you. Simply enter your road trip start and end destination, plus stops along the way if applicable. You can choose the fastest route or ask Roadtrippers to suggest additional stops along the way. 

Activity and Attraction Suggestions 

As just mentioned, Roadtrippers offers suggestions on things to do along your road trip route. These suggestions include activities to try and attractions to visit, as well as dining and accommodation suggestions. 

Gas Cost Estimations 

Once you have a route mapped, Roadtrippers provides an estimation of the total gas cost. This feature is great for those operating on a budget. 

Navigation 

Roadtrippers also help guide you once you set out on the trip with in-app navigation. This feature allows you to stay within the app instead of switching to another navigation app, like Google Maps. 

Roadtrippers Plus Added Features 

• Offline maps
• Collaboration features, allowing multiple travelers to add to the road trip itinerary 
• Live traffic updates 
• Special promotions from Roadtrippers’ travel panthers, such as discounts on hotels 
• Dark mode 
• No in-app ads 

Who Is Roadtrippers For? 

As the name suggests, Roadtrippers is ideal for people planning road trips. The app is helpful for all types of road trip travelers, from those looking for a quick route from A to B to those wanting to visit an array of attractions along a multi-city route. 

Who Is RoadTrippers Not For? 

This app isn’t optimal for those planning different types of travel experiences. For example, if you’ll fly to one city and then want recommendations for tourist attractions, this isn’t the right app for you. You also miss out on features without a paid account, so if you want to benefit from all of a travel apps’ features for free, you may not be interested in RoadTrippers. 

Want to learn more about Roadtrippers? Read our in-depth Roadtrippers review ! 

Best Travel Planning App for Trip Information Organization: TripIt

TripIt is one of the relatively well-known itinerary planning apps that stores all your trip details, like transport and accommodation information, in one place. TripIt can be used via web browser or an app for iOS or Android. 

TripIt has both a free version of the app, with limited features, and a paid-for version called TripIt Pro. You can also purchase TripIt for Teams which is targeted at business travelers.

TripIt Pro: $49 per year with a 30-day free trial

TripIt Teams: Starts at $29 a month for one to ten users 

TripIt Features

TripIt allows you to upload your travel information to one place. Things you can upload include flight details, hotel bookings, and activity reservations. You can manually upload information or email it to TripIt. 

TripIt Pro Added Features 

• Transport fare trackers
• Check-in reminders
• Flight updates
• Seat upgrade information 
• Airport security wait time updates 
• Loyalty/rewards program points tracker 
• Baggage claim location notification 
• Interactive maps
• Ability to share plans with others 
• Features to add documents to your itinerary, such as photos or PDFs 

Who Is TripIt For? 

This is a great app for those that only want to store and organize all the information they already have relating to a trip in one place, and have access to this information on their phone. It’s also very easy to use. 

Those that also want notifications related to their trip all in one place will appreciate the features offered by TripIt Pro. 

Who Is TripIt Not For? 

TripIt is quite a basic itinerary planner. In addition, TripIt doesn’t offer suggestions on things to do in the city you’re visiting. These drawbacks mean that TripIt is best for those that only want to store all of their travel information in one place.

If you’re looking for an app that offers travel suggestions, such as activities to try or landmarks to visit, this isn’t the app for you. Travelers looking for a free travel itinerary app will probably not be interested in TripIt either (you should instead try Wanderlog that’s 100% free to use!) 

Unsure if TripIt is right for you? Read our detailed TripIt review to learn more about the app.

Best Travel Planning App for Documenting Your Trip: Polarsteps

Polarsteps allows you to document your entire trip, along with creating itineraries. This travel app can be used in-browser or via an app and is one of the best free travel planner apps, as you can access all features at no cost. You can pay for a printed travel book with pictures and notes relating to your trip. These books start at approximately $40 for a 24-page book.

Polarsteps Features

Trip Itinerary Creation 

You can create a trip itinerary and add as many stops as you like. These stops include different cities, countries, and landmarks/places of interest. A map showing each stop will also be generated. 

Addition of Images, Videos, and Notes 

For every stop added, you can also upload pictures, videos, and a description of the place. This feature is ideal for those looking to document their adventure and makes Polarsteps somewhat of a digital travel scrapbook. 

Access to Pre-Created Trips

You can follow other users (as you would on social media networks) and access their pre-created trips. This is the one discovery feature on the app to help you find additional places to visit. 

Sharing Features 

It’s easy to share trips with other people, like friends and family. You can add followers to your trip, which allows them to see everything you’re doing. Multiple people, however, can not edit and add to a trip from different accounts. 

Who Is Polarsteps For? 

Polarsteps is recommended for those that want to document their entire trip with images, notes, and the like. It’s also perfect for those taking long, multi-city trips, although can be used by those taking shorter trips too. 

Who Is Polarsteps Not For? 

This app isn’t recommended for those looking to create an itinerary that simply keeps all of their travel information in one place. If you don’t want to document your trip via images, notes, and videos, Polarsteps probably won’t be worth using. 

The app also isn’t great for those looking for activity suggestions, you can access the trips of others for ideas, but the Polarsteps will not offer streamlined activity suggestions itself. 

Read our detailed Polarsteps review to discover more about this app. 

Best Alternative to Print Travel Guides: Lonely Planet Guides

Lonely Planet is an extremely well-known travel guide brand. Recently, they launched an app, Lonely Planet Guides, that is quickly becoming one of the  best travel planner apps. Lonely Planet Guides offers attractions and landmark suggestions for over 1,000 cities. You can also access videos, curated collections, and phrasebooks. 

Lonely Planet Guides is accessible via an app for iOS and Android. There is a free version, but it’s very basic, so paying for a subscription is necessary in most cases. Lonely Planet Guides pricing is as follows: 

• One Month: $4.99
• Six Months: $21.99 (or $3.67 a month)
• One Year: $39.99 (or $3.33 a month) 

Lonely Planet Guides Features

Information on Places of Interest 

You have access to information on landmarks and attractions for the majority of cities on the app. This feature is great for discovery and allows you to find the best things to see and do in the city you’re visiting.

If you don’t have a paid subscription, you can only access info on four places of interest per month. 

Custom Maps and Bucket Lists 

If you discover places of interest that you want to visit, you can add them to a map and/or bucket list. Once in the city, you can open your map to easily see where all the attractions you want to visit are located. 

Without a paid plan, you can only add four locations to your map each month. 

Curated Collections

Access to pre-created collections of things to do is available. These are often categorized, for example, the best markets or restaurants to visit. 

Ability to Purchase Tours and Other Tickets 

If you discover an attraction you want to visit or a tour you want to try, you can purchase tickets via a third party directly in the app. 

Paid Subscription Added Features 

• Access to phrasebooks for 19 languages 
• 360-degree immersive experiences 

Who Is Lonely Planet Guides For? 

The Lonely Planet Guides app is ideal for those looking for a digital alternative to traditional print travel guidebooks. It’s also a good choice for those going on a multi-city trip as you have access to information for thousands of cities across the globe, all from your phone. 

Who Is Lonely Planet Guides Not For? 

Lonely Planet Guides isn’t recommended for travelers that are looking for free travel planner apps. It’s also not the best option for those looking to create complete itineraries that include transport and accommodation information as well as places they plan to visit. 

Get all the details on this travel planner app by reading our Lonely Planet Guides review . 

Best Travel Planning App for Those That Want to Explore Like a Local: ViaHero

ViaHero is a travel planning app with a difference. Instead of planning your itinerary yourself, locals to the area (called “Heroes”) will create an itinerary and personalized guidebook for you. Understandably, this comes at a cost. You’ll be charged $40 per day of itinerary planning, with the maximum paid for a guidebook usually being $125. 

Destinations covered include cities in North America, Central and South America, Asia, and Europe. 

ViaHero Features

Custom Guidebook Creation  

After highlighting the types of activities and attractions you’re interested in, your “Hero” will create an itinerary and guidebook. 

A Personalized Map

You’ll also get access to a custom map that features each location mentioned in your guidebook. 

Booking of Activities and Other Travel Arrangements 

If things on your itinerary need booking (and booking doesn’t require prepayment) your local “hero” will make these arrangements for you. 

Ability to Communicate with Your “Hero”  

You can get in touch with your local “hero” at any point before and during your trip. This feature allows you to request changes to your itinerary and ask questions if needed as you explore the city.  

Who Is ViaHero For? 

ViaHero is one of the best travel planner apps for those that have limited time to plan their own trip, plus a decent budget for someone else to do so for them. It’s also a great choice for those that like to explore off the beaten track and get recommendations from locals instead of visiting tourist hotspots. 

Who Is ViaHero Not For? 

Due to the cost, ViaHero isn’t a good option for those traveling on a budget. It also may not be a great choice for those that are visiting a city for the first time and want to see the most popular landmarks and attractions. 

Being a newer service, only “heroes” from a limited number of cities are available at this time. If you’re visiting an area without a local “hero,” you won’t be able to use the service. 

Best Travel Planning App for Those That Love Reviews: Tripadvisor 

Tripadvisor is another of the itinerary planning apps that’s well-known to the majority of travelers. Along with a browser version, Tripadvisor has a convenient app that can help with everything from booking accommodation to discovering places to visit. 

Tripadvisor is free to use and has information for almost every city across the globe. Tripadvisor will offer an overview of the city you search for, along with hotel, restaurant, and activity recommendations. Best of all, all suggestions include reviews from travelers who have visited. 

Tripadvisor Features 

Things to Do  

Tripadvisor suggests a range of places to visit and activities to try in the destination you’re visiting. Along with searching the “Things to Do” section, you can search for specific landmarks and attractions to get more information on them. Whichever way you search, you’ll also have access to reviews from travelers who have visited the landmark or attraction or tried the activity.  

Restaurants 

You can also access restaurant suggestions for the destinations you’re heading to. Again, reviews from those who have dined at each establishment are available. You can also select categories, such as types of cuisine, to narrow down your search. Many restaurants offer the option to reserve via Tripadvisor too. 

Hotels 

Looking for a place to stay? Tripadvisor has you covered! Simply input the dates you need accommodation for, number of guests, and other filters like budget, if applicable, to view hotel results. You can then go straight to the hotel website from Tripadvisor or view deals from hotel booking sites like Hotels.com. 

Itinerary Maps and Lists

When you find activities you want to try, landmarks you intend to visit, and restaurants you wish to dine at, you can add them to a map and list. By adding these things to a map, you can easily see where everything you want to do is located, and develop day-by-day plans. Unfortunately, you can’t create an actual day-to-day itinerary via Tripadvisor. 

Who Is Tripadvisor For? 

This app is great for learning more about attractions, landmarks, restaurants, and accommodation via reviews. If you like to hear opinions from real travelers before committing to plans, you’ll appreciate Tripadvisor. It also has amazing discovery features, making Tripadvisor ideal for travelers that are looking for suggestions on things to do in the locations they’re visiting. 

Who Is Tripadvisor Not For? 

Tripadvisor isn’t ideal for planning day-to-day itineraries. While you can create maps and lists of all the places you want to go, these can’t be separated into individual days. That can be frustrating for travelers, especially if going on a multi-day or week trip. 

Using Tripadvisor to access reviews and combining this research with a full travel itinerary planner, like Wanderlog , is recommended.  

Other Itinerary Planning Apps to Consider 

While we rank the above five as the best travel planner apps on the market, the following eight apps are worth checking out too!

GEOVEA allows you to plan trips, store details like flight and accommodation info, and search for activity suggestions. This travel planning software also has budgeting features. You can estimate the cost of the activities included in the itinerary to see the overall cost of your trip. 

While you can use the company’s website on your phone, there isn’t an app. The standard version of the software is free but comes with limitations. To have full access to the app, you must purchase a subscription which starts at $29.99/year.  

Hipherd is one of the best free travel planner apps for those looking for a place to store travel inspiration. It allows you to save a range of travel content that you find across the web, such as travel articles, videos, and other information on destinations you want to visit.  

As with Pinterest, you can create “boards” to organize content by destination or other categories. You can view the collections of other users too. You can also create maps that show all the attractions you want to visit. Best of all, Hipherd costs nothing to use. 

Inspirock is a free travel itinerary planning  software that creates day-to-day itineraries for you based on data you input. Once a list of suggested places to visit has been generated, you can edit the itinerary to remove and add activities. You can also access accommodation suggestions, car and flight deals, and booking links. 

Learn more about this travel planner by taking a look at our Inspirock review ! 

Jubel is one of the great itinerary planning apps for those that are looking to discover new destinations. You start by answering a questionnaire to highlight travel likes, dislikes, and other preferences. A customized itinerary for a surprise destination is then created for you. This service does come at a cost, with Jubel users needing a trip budget of at least $1,500 for a solo-traveler trip or $1,100/per traveler for multi-person trips. 

Pilot 

Pilot is one of the free travel planner apps that’s perfect for travelers wanting to create itineraries as a group. You can add travel information, like flight bookings, to your online account, along with adding the activities you’ll do each day to an itinerary. It’s also easy to collaborate on one trip itinerary as a group. As mentioned, Pilot is free to use, but there is not a mobile app, so you must use the software in-browser. 

Portico 

Portico is another recommended app for planning itineraries, organizing travel information, and searching for activity suggestions. Travel confirmation emails (transport bookings, accommodation reservations, etc.) can be added manually or simply email them to Portico to add to your account. You can also search for travel inspiration in-app and add places you want to visit to itineraries and lists. Portico is free and can be used in-browser or via an iOS app. 

Tripscout 

Tripscout is one of the best travel planner apps for trip inspiration and high-quality travel content. You can search an array of content in-app to learn about new destinations and attractions. If you discover things you’d like to do and places you’d like to go, you can add them to lists, itineraries, and maps to begin planning your next adventure! Tripscout is also always free to use. 

Tripsy 

Tripsy is another organization-focused itinerary planning app. This app stores travel information, such as flight confirmations and other transport info, restaurant reservations, and the like.  You can also get notifications, for example relating to your flight status, and can easily share your itinerary with friends and family. 

You can integrate your plans with third-party maps and calendars and can email confirmations as well as adding them manually. Tripsy has a free and paid-for Pro version that offers additional benefits, including unlimited itineraries. 

The Best Travel Apps for Flights and Hotels

Need transport or accommodation deals? These four travel planner apps are here to help! 

Snaptravel 

Snaptravel offers amazing deals on flights and hotels. Simply enter your travel dates and destination(s), and a selection of customized offers will be served to you. Customers benefit from rate and fare reductions of 30-50%, and Snaptravel is free to use. 

Discover more about saving on hotels and flights with this app by reading our Snaptravel review . 

Scott’s Cheap Flights 

Scott’s Cheap Flights provides users with incredible flight deals out of their local airport. You’ll receive deal emails each day with fare reductions of up 90% off applied. Scott’s Cheap Flights offers a free version and paid-for options, which allow you to receive business and first-class deals and add multiple departure airports. 

Read our Scott’s Cheap Flights review to learn more about this company! 

Dollar Flight Club 

Dollar Flight Club is another company offering steep discounts on flights. Enter your departure airport at sign-up and you’ll be emailed daily with great deals to an array of destinations. There is a free version, but this only offers access to 20% of deals. For the best results, upgrade to Premium ($69/year) or Premium Plus ($99/year.) Users can expect to save 60-90% on flights, however, you don’t have the option to get deals for specific destinations.  

Want to find out more? Read our Dollar Flight Club review . 

RometoRio 

Rome to Rio offers an array of transport options that work with your trip and are bookable through the app. This free app can show you flights, car rentals, buses, and trains that will allow you to get from point to point on your itinerary. While Rome2Rio isn’t a deal-based app, you can also benefit from cheaper transport rates when using the app. You can also find accommodation and activity suggestions via Rome2Rio, but cannot create itineraries.

Not sure which of these travel planner apps to choose? Give Wanderlog a try ! It costs nothing to do so, and we guarantee that you’ll love it.

The 8 Best Travel Budgeting Tools of 2023

You will never travel without this app again

8 apps that will help track your travel expenses

Keeping track of travel expenses can be challenging. With paper receipts, email receipts and not being handed any receipt at times, it's important to be organized for both the business and leisure traveler.

Fortunately, for those who are not the best at having a good grasp on their expenses, there are many apps that can simplify your life. These apps help with expense reports, budgeting purposes, tax preparation and splitting expenses among friends.

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With something for everyone, here are the best apps to help you keep track of your expenses.

TrabeePocket

TrabeePocket is a straightforward app that allows you to keep track of your expenses for a given trip. Before you even start your trip you can add all prepaid expenses to the "preparing" tab. This allows you to account for your flights and any tours you might have booked in advance. Once your trip begins you can easily add all additional travel expenses. You can categorize your expenses into eight different categories, but with the paid version, you can add as many additional categories as you want if you have very specific expenses you want to track. The free version also only allows you to track one currency per trip, but the paid version allows you to track multiple currencies in one trip file.

Not only will TrabeePocket serve as a place to file your expenses, it also helps you on the budgeting front as well. You can set a monthly budget and have your expenses track against that overall number. If you are earning income during your travel, you can also enter income to a specific trip expense.

One neat feature of this app is that you can take pictures and tie it to a specific expense. This is great for the backpacker or family traveler who wants to remember exactly what the expense was used for, or to keep track of trip suggestions. Business travelers can also use this feature by taking a picture of a receipt if it is needed for a corporate expense report.

Cost: Free; Upgraded version is $1.99 and includes some additional options (i.e., multiple currencies, additional categories, view and export expense report)

Download: Google Play Store or iTunes App Store

Trail Wallet

Trail Wallet is very similar to TrabeePocket, but unfortunately is not available to Android users. With this app, you can add as many categories as you want to separate expenses and everything is color coded to make the app more visually appealing. (Unlike TrabeePocket, you do not need to pay for an upgraded version to add more categories).

When you enter your travel expenses, you'll tie it to both a trip and a date. This allows you to view your expenses at a Month View or Trip View. You can also spread expenses across multiple dates so you can see your daily expenses for a certain trip. This is handy if you are on a daily budget to ensure you're not exceeding the amount you can spend on a particular day.

One nice feature of this app is that you can add as many currencies as you'd like within a certain trip. This comes in handy if you are paying in multiple currencies — for example, flight and hotel costs in USD, but food expenses in euros.

This app caters more toward individual or family travel as you cannot invite friends to add expenses. You can, however, take pictures of receipts and tie them to a specific expense, and then export the images — perfect for keeping all receipts or for business travelers for expense purposes.

Cost: Free for the first 25 expense items added to a single trip; Upgraded version is $4.99 which allows you to enter an unlimited number of expenses per trip.

Download: iTunes App Store

Concur is one of the top expense programs for business travel. This app is definitely more involved then some of the others on the list, but it has all the bells and whistles for keeping your expenses fully organized. If you work for a large corporation, you might already find that this is the required app to use for your business expenses.

Expenses from corporate credit cards will automatically be uploaded and you can also manually add out-of-pocket expenses. For manually entered expenses, employees can take a picture of their receipt which will be included in their expense report. For the business traveler with many paper receipts during the week, this app helps ensure that all expenses are reimbursed properly.

If you run a small-business, this is a great platform for you and your employees to use as it allows you to manage expenses and prepare expense reports. When I worked for a large consulting company, I used this program on a weekly basis. Being able to keep track of my work expenses to ensure I was reimbursed with every amount paid out of pocket was huge. For solo and group travelers, this is not the app I suggest using as there is no need to pay the monthly fee as there are many other free apps available.

Cost: Fee depends on number of users and account type.

Related: 5 tips to turn business travel into family vacations

Tripcoin is a very simple app to use that will track all of your expenses against a particular trip. You can tie each expense to a specific category, enter a city location and a defined date and time. You can also include notes and a screen shot to keep better track of every purchase you make.

This app has an atheistically pleasing filter capability, where you can look at expenses between a given date, within a certain category, a type of payment method or within a particular country. There is also a real-time currency converter or you can set custom currency exchange rates if needed.

Best of all, you can automatically back up all of your data by enabling the Dropbox integration. With many of the other apps listed here, if you lose your phone or if your data gets wiped out, you will lose all of the expenses entered. If this does happen, with this specific app, all of your expenses are saved and can be re-imported.

Unfortunately, this app is only available for iPhone users.

SplitWise is one of my personal favorites and an app I've been using for years. If you are traveling in a group , this is the app for you. The best, and unique feature, is that you can have friends or family members join a group and everyone can enter all expenses incurred for the joint trip. The app will then itemize expenses and tell each individual how much they owe to make things equal. You can even designate which expenses should be split among certain individuals. Like most of the other apps, you can also take include a picture and notes for every expense entered.

I have used the app for friend and sibling trips, including bachelorette parties, group ski trips and even just day trips. Aside from travel expenses, you can even use it to split up expenses among roommates or just everyday purchases with friends.

Cost: Free; Upgraded version is $2.99/month ($29.99/year) which includes receipt scanning, currency conversion and more.

Tricount is a simple app, but a great choice for group travel . It works very similar to SplitWise where you can split expenses among multiple travelers in your group. Everyone can add their own expenses and designate the specific amount (or percentage) for each individual within the group. At the end of the trip, you'll then receive a breakdown of what everyone owes each other.

The app supports multiple currencies and allows you to take pictures of images or receipts to go along with every expense entered.

Cost: Free; Upgraded version is $0.99 and allows you to have an ad-free experience.

Related: 30 essential travel apps every traveler needs to know

If keeping track of receipts is high on your priority list, then the Foreceipt app will be perfect for your needs. You can attach a receipt with all expenses entered and all images will automatically be saved to your Google Drive account. Additionally, all email receipts can be tracked as well by forwarding them directly to Foreceipt email address and including your unique ID.

Other features include the capability to batch upload bank transactions and downloading excel reports for tax return purposes — perfect for those who need to write off travel expenses.

Within the app, Foreceipt allows you to enter your income, bills and travel expenses to track against your overall budget. You can also tie all travel expenses to one of many pre-populated categories.

With these more involved capabilities, business travelers and those who own small businesses will probably find this app more useful than solo or group travelers.

Cost: Free; Upgraded version is $3.99/month ($38.99/year) and includes more receipts scans per month, email receipts and expense reports.

Expensify caters toward both individual and group travelers traveling primarily for business. This app allows you to complete all the simple tasks such as documenting your expenses and taking a picture of your receipt, but goes one step further where you can submit your expenses to your manager or accountant (or really whomever you'd like).

For those who need to keep track of mileage driven, this app allows you to not only manually enter your information but also has a GPS calculator which you can turn on to track your distance. You can also enter your time worked, which helps those needing to track billable hours.

The app also features more than just a place to submit your expenses, as you can keep track of business operations and even set expense policies.

On the feel good front, Expensify will also donate $2 for every $1,000 in expenses to Expensify.org. These donations are given to a broad range of campaigns to help organizations around the world.

Cost: Free up to five scans a month; Upgraded version is $4.99/month per user giving you unlimited scans and additional automatic capabilities.

Bottom Line

With many apps to keep track of your expenses, it helps to find one that fits your needs. Whether you are traveling for business or pleasure, with a group or on your own, there are many apps out there that work well depending on your needs.

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The 6 Best Mileage Tracker Apps for 2024

When your business is driving, these apps make it their business to help you

• Rutgers University
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If you operate a small business or need to track your miles for work, there's no shortage of apps for both the iPhone and Android that do this automatically. Some apps even help you track expenses and put it all in a tax-ready format. Here are six of the best mileage trackers you can use to streamline your workflow and stop manually tracking your miles. 

Best All-in-One Expense Tracker: Everlance

Automatic mileage tracking.

Complete business expense and revenue tracking.

Excellent interface.

Very few features included in the free version.

There's a lot more here than just mileage tracking: Everlance is a one-stop shop for tracking your small businesses' revenue and expenses. You can input these items manually or the app can sync with your bank accounts and credit cards.

In fact, Everlance does so much that it's surprising it handles mileage tracking so well. It starts and stops automatically as you drive and keeps a history of your trips complete with destinations and map views. And the app organizes all this for your taxes and records.

The app tracks up to 30 trips each month for free, but to get the most out of the app you'll need to upgrade to one of the paid plans. Everlance Premium is $5 per month while Premium Plus, which throws in one-on-one training and support, costs $10 per month.

Download For :

Simplest Mileage Logger: MileIQ

Free with Microsoft Office 365.

Simple, automatic mileage tracking.

Beautiful interface. 

You only get 40 free drives without subscribing. 

Most mileage loggers feel the need to do more than just track mileage. And while it might be great to also have expense and revenue tracking all in one place, there's something to be said for simplicity. MileIQ is elegant in its simplicity. It does just one thing: mileage tracking. And it does it superbly.

The app is completely automatic, tracking miles without any input from you at all. And when the drive is over, MileIQ makes sure you don't forget to classify your trips as personal or business by collecting all the unclassified trips in one place, complete with gorgeous maps of the route.

You get 40 free drives each month, but you'll want to upgrade to the paid version for $6 per month for unlimited trip logging. Even better, if you're a Microsoft Office 365 subscriber, it's included for free. 

Best for Tracking Fuel Economy: TripLog Mileage Tracker

Highly polished interface.

Simple fuel efficiency reporting.

Paid plans are expensive.

One of the most polished looking mileage trackers you're likely to find, TripLog is a robust app that tracks expenses and generates reports, plus it automatically tracks mileage driven with no effort on your part. It has a slew of extra goodies, like the ability to track your fuel efficiency when you input your gas receipts (which you can do by taking a photo).

TripLog can even work without the app; if you want to save your phone's battery, you can even buy the TripLog Beacon USB dongle that tracks your miles and syncs with your phone afterward. TripLog has a lot up its sleeve, so it should be no surprise to learn it isn't free. You get to try it for 30 days, but after that, the paid plans start at $6 per month. 

Best for Ride Share Drivers: SherpaShare

Wealth of features aimed at rideshare drivers.

Gorgeous mileage tracking logs.

Integrated chat tool for talking to other drivers. 

Interface is crowded with non-essential menus like signups for rewards and referral programs. 

A lot of mileage trackers try to be all things to all drivers, but SherpaShare is laser-focused on rideshare drivers, positioning itself a "diver assistant." It does that not just with mileage tracking, which it does automatically and effortlessly, but also with a wealth of specialized features that should appeal specifically to Uber and Lyft drivers.

There's a heatmap, for example, which lets you see where other drivers are working in real-time. Hotspot generates a list of nearby locations that are reported as popular by other drivers. And Compass builds a route for you that takes you to historically active locales.

Installing SherpaShare gets you a 14-day free trial. After that, monthly plans start at $6 per month. If you like, you can also take part in the referral program, which lets you earn money when your friends join SherpaShare as well. 

Best Completely Free Mileage Tracker: Stride

Completely free.

Tracks all kinds of expenses. 

Generates expense reports for tax prep.

Mileage tracking is only sort of automatic.

Stride is a free mileage and expense tracker for your small business. A large green button in the middle of the app lets you log income and expenses, automatically categorizing each with just a few taps. You can also generate expense reports that are useful for tax prep. Remarkably, the app is completely free with no in-app purchases or premium subscriptions.

Unfortunately, Stride's mileage tracking is wonky. Yes, it is automatic, sort of. You need to remember to start tracking when you get in the car. After that, it'll track everywhere you go during the day. And then you need to stop tracking when you're done. Forget to tap the buttons, and you'll need to enter miles manually.

Superb Expense Tracking for Freelancers: Hurdlr

Comprehensive financial features for freelancers.

Designed for modern gig workers with multiple businesses. 

Simply too expensive. 

No matter what kind of freelance operation or side hustle you've got brewing, Hurdlr wants to handle all your needs, from mileage tracking to expense and revenue management. You can enter receipts and invoices manually or link the app to your bank accounts, and when it comes to mileage tracking, the app can do that all by itself as well. You can even create multiple businesses in the app, which is handy for folks with multiple gigs.

You only get five days of free use of the app, which honestly, hardly seems enough to get a good sense of the app, especially given how expansive it is. After that, you need to pay $8 per month, which is also a bit pricey, and is the most expensive app in this roundup.

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The Best Bluetooth Tracker

By Nick Guy

If you’re lucky, the $30 you spend on a Bluetooth tracker will be wasted money. These tags are helpful only when you need to find your stuff—if you never lose things, they’re just ornamental. But if you’re often scrambling to locate your keys or bag as you’re heading out the door, a Bluetooth tracker can be a lifesaver. iPhone users should choose Apple’s AirTag , which employs a huge network of Apple devices to passively search for lost goods and enable precision finding features, making it more likely that you’ll recover what you’ve misplaced. If you use an Android phone, go with Tile trackers, including the Tile Mate (2022) . With the second-largest crowd-finding network, Tile is the best option for those who don’t use Apple’s phones.

Apple AirTag

The best bluetooth tracker for iphone users.

AirTags leverage Apple’s huge network of devices to find lost goods, and they’re impressively accurate in pinpointing an item’s precise location.

Buying Options

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Bluetooth trackers let you monitor the location of whatever they’re attached to from a phone, tablet, or computer. For iPhone owners, Apple’s AirTag is an easy top pick. When the tracker is out of range of your phone, it’s designed to work in unison with other Apple devices, which means there’s nearly a billion devices constantly looking for lost items. This vast network makes it more likely that something you drop will be found. When your AirTag is in range of your phone, it also uses technology beyond regular Bluetooth to show you where your lost item is—within inches. No other tracker can compete with the broad scope and precision finding that an AirTag offers.

Tile Mate (2022)

The best bluetooth tracker for android users.

The Tile Mate has a long range, is quite loud, and gives you a better chance of finding your lost stuff than other non-Apple trackers.

Tile Essentials (2022)

The Tile Essentials set bundles two Tile Mates, the Tile Slim, and the Tile Sticker in a bundle that’s more affordable than buying them separately.

AirTags don’t work with Android phones, but Tile’s trackers, including the Tile Mate (2022) , the Tile Slim (2022) , and the Tile Sticker (2022) (also available in a bundle ) are the best alternative. As a company, Tile has become synonymous with trackers the same way Kleenex is with facial tissue. Its trackers offer the second-largest crowd-finding network, as well as impressive range. You can also use a Tile to remotely trigger a lost phone to ring, something you can’t do with AirTags.

The research

How we picked and tested, our pick if you have an iphone: apple airtag, flaws but not dealbreakers, our pick if you have an android phone: tile, what to look forward to, what about privacy and security, the competition.

Over the past few years, we’ve tested more than a dozen Bluetooth trackers. The major players in this category are well known. But to make sure we didn’t miss any, during our research for a previous version of this guide, we turned to Amazon and Google. The latter search turned up some great comparative reviews from Tom’s Guide , The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) , Wired , and Yahoo .

Here’s what we look for in a great Bluetooth tracker:

• Network size: Most Bluetooth trackers can utilize other phones that have the tracker’s app installed to silently and privately search for your lost objects. The more people who use a platform, the better your chances of recovering your lost stuff.
• Precision finding: Once you know the general location of your lost tracker, narrowing down exactly where it’s hiding is the key to finding it. Trackers use a combination of physical speakers and digital apps to help you locate your belongings.
• Size: A tracker that’s too obtrusive to carry around with you or to attach to the thing you want to track is useless. Smaller and lighter is better.
• Range: The longer the range, the farther you can be from the tracker and still be able to find your lost item.
• Volume: If you’re near your tracker but can’t hear it, that’s no good. Despite having little space for a speaker, some of these can get quite loud.
• Other features: A replaceable battery isn’t absolutely required, but it’s a big plus. We also prefer trackers that can trigger an alarm on your phone. An app that is easy to navigate and updates location information quickly is important too.

Prior to the 2021 introduction of Apple’s AirTag, the most important test we conducted was to determine each tracker’s potential range—how far away from the tracker we could move a paired smartphone before we lost the Bluetooth connection. In 2019, we tested the range in Wirecutter’s 190-foot-long office in Long Island City, New York. We set each tracker on a shelf, triggered it to ring, and then walked away with our paired iPhone while noting the distance using a measuring wheel . Once the tracker’s smartphone app showed the tracker as out of range—or we physically hit the wall—we recorded the distance. We repeated this test at least five times per tracker and calculated the average distance for each across the measurements. Because AirTags leverage a much larger network and are more precise once you’re in range, we still test the effective distance, but it’s not as important.

If you use an iPhone and want to track your stuff, Apple’s AirTag is easily the best option. Compared with the competition, this tracker has two distinct strengths that make it our top choice: The AirTag utilizes Apple’s huge network of devices to assist in finding the area where you left your lost item, and precision tracking makes it easier for you to locate the exact spot. Taken together, these two features mean you’re more likely to find what you’re looking for with the AirTag than with any other Bluetooth tracking system.

Apple isn’t the first company to utilize a crowd-finding network for tracking purposes, but with a billion devices, its network has by far the largest number of devices that can look for your stuff. Since 2019, Apple’s Find My app has used Bluetooth in every iPhone, iPad, and Mac that’s on the network to passively and anonymously find lost iPhones, Macs, and even contacts who share their location. Now AirTags can use the same system to report the location of any item you attach them to. In practical terms, this means if you leave your AirTag-equipped keys at the coffee shop, for example, as long as someone there at some point has an Apple device, the keys’ location will be reported to you (and the person with the iPhone or other Apple device who identified it will never know). Although Tile’s trackers work the same way, they do so on a far smaller scale—it’s much more likely that the customer sitting one table over has an iPhone than a Tile.

The other key feature of the AirTag works once you know your tracker’s general location. Like the iPhone 11, 12, 13, and 14 lineups, AirTags support a wireless connection known as Ultra Wideband, which allows for precision locating at relatively short distances. Once you’re in the general vicinity of your AirTag (say, the coffee shop where you left your keys), you can tap the Find button in the Find My app. The app then shows you the direction and distance to the AirTag in question, and your phone vibrates as you get closer and allows you to play a sound to assist in your search. In our testing the AirTag’s tracking signal took a moment to lock on, but once it did we were thoroughly impressed by the system’s accuracy.

Compared with Tile’s trackers, AirTags have a much shorter Bluetooth range. Apple doesn’t state any specific figures, but we found that the tracker maintained a connection to our test iPhone for only 30 feet or so. On the face of it, that doesn’t sound great, but wandering around your office or home looking for your keys isn’t that different from using a Tile with a 100-foot range. And we think Apple’s much, much larger crowd-finding network and precision locating are more important factors, since that’s what will make it more likely that you’ll recover stuff you’ve truly lost.

With its glossy, white plastic front and metal back, the AirTag looks and feels a lot like a pin-back button you might put on a jean jacket or backpack. The diameter is a little larger than a quarter, and the tracker is actually about a millimeter or two thicker than many iPhones, although its curved design makes it feel thinner. You have the option to add custom engraving when you order from Apple, with up to four characters (letters and/or numbers) or selected emoji; if you buy the four-pack, you can get different text on each. Noticeably absent is any sort of attachment mechanism such as a key-ring hole or adhesive back. Instead, you have to buy an extra accessory. Of course, Apple sells a handful of its own , and plenty of third-party companies sell all sorts of designs, as well.

If you lose an AirTag (or an item containing or attached to one), you can use the Find My app or ask Siri to trigger an audible alert from the AirTag. The tune plays for about six seconds, with a repeating series of beeps. We found both the tone and the volume sufficient to help us find the AirTag when it was hidden around our testing space, comparable to what we’ve experienced with Tile trackers. If your AirTag is buried under a pile of clothes, for instance, you may not hear it, but the tone should otherwise be audible as long as you’re in the same room.

Thanks to Apple’s control over both the hardware (the iPhone or iPad and the AirTag) and the software, the setup process to activate a new AirTag is foolproof. When you unpack a new AirTag and place it next to your phone or tablet, a pop up appears on your screen, much like when you’re pairing a set of AirPods or an Apple Watch. Once you tap Connect , you can set a name for the AirTag and register it to your Apple ID. There are no settings or menus, and the entire process takes under a minute. Tile’s setup isn’t any more difficult, but you do need to manually launch the Tile app first, which is an extra step.

You track and manage your AirTags in Apple’s Find My app, where you can see the location and options for each tag. You can also rename or remove an AirTag on this screen, with the latter option resetting it completely, unpairing it from your Apple ID and allowing someone else to use it as if it were new. Up to 16 AirTags can be connected to an account.

One surprising but much-appreciated feature: Each AirTag runs on a removable, user-replaceable battery. It’s the only Apple-designed product to make the process easy. When the battery runs low (Apple says you should expect about a year out of it, roughly the same as a Tile battery), the Find My app notifies you, and you can swap in a new CR2032 battery by twisting off the AirTag’s metal back, removing the old battery, and popping the new one in. Even with this accessible design, AirTags are IP67 rated, so they should survive being under 1 meter of water for up to 30 minutes, although Apple warns: “Splash, water, and dust resistance are not permanent conditions and resistance might decrease as a result of normal wear.”

You can tap any relatively recent iPhone or Android phone against an AirTag, which will trigger a website showing the serial number of the tracker and instructions on how to disable it (by removing the battery). The wireless connection that happens here is the same kind—near-field communication, or NFC—that lets you tap an iPhone or Apple Watch near a store’s payment terminal to use Apple Pay. In this case, NFC serves to identify lost goods attached to the tracker, or to help you determine whether someone might be using the AirTag to track you without your knowledge . If the AirTag has been set to lost mode, the owner’s phone number will appear on your screen so that you can call them to return their lost item.

In fall 2021, Apple updated the AirTags’s firmware to include separation alerts, which notify you if you leave your keys behind, for example. This is a common feature among Bluetooth trackers, but it was omitted when the AirTags first launched. It’s very well implemented here. You can toggle the alerts on and off per device, and you can set exceptions—say, if you don’t need to be alerted every time you leave home without your AirTag-armed backpack—with small, medium, or large separation radiuses, depending on the sensitivity level you need.

Unlike Tile’s trackers (and some others), the AirTag doesn’t have any way to ring your phone if it’s nearby. So if it’s your iPhone that’s lost, you’ll have to rely on the Find My app on another Apple device to find it.

There’s no way to share an AirTag with another person because the tracker can be associated with only one Apple ID, even if you use Apple’s Family Sharing plan. If you share a set of keys with a partner or roommate, for example, only one of you will be able to track them in the Find My app.

Because AirTags don’t have any way to attach to your stuff directly, the actual cost is higher than the price of the tracker itself, unless you plan on just tossing one loose into a bag or pocket. Apple’s key rings and loops all cost at least as much as a single AirTag, effectively doubling the price. Obviously, you can save quite a bit by buying from a third-party accessory maker. We’ll be testing some holders soon and including a few of our favorites in an update to this guide.

AirTags don’t work with Android phones, but that doesn’t mean non-Apple folks don’t have a good tracker option. Tile’s Bluetooth trackers, including the Tile Mate (2022) , the Tile Slim (2022) , and the Tile Sticker (2022) (also available packed together in the Tile Essentials bundle), are the next most popular, so they have the second-largest crowd-finding network. They also offer impressive range and alarm volume, and are sized and shaped in more convenient ways: You can put a Tile Mate on a keychain without buying an extra holder, slip a Tile Slim into your wallet, or attach a Tile Sticker to any flat surface.

If your Tile is out of Bluetooth range, you can view a map displaying its location the last time your phone made contact with it. If your phone is no longer at that location—or if you’re worried that it won’t be—you can mark the item as lost, which invokes Tile’s crowd-finding feature. Tile tells us it has sold more than 50 million trackers. That doesn’t mean all of them are currently active, and a big portion likely aren’t; early Tile trackers didn’t have replaceable batteries, which meant the entire device had to be replaced annually. So the total number of Tile units that make up its crowd-finding network is a tiny fraction of Apple’s. According to the company’s figures, however, “millions of items” are found daily, and of those marked as lost, Tile says 90% are found. In fall 2022, Tile opened its network up to parent company Life360’s 42 million smartphone users, who can choose to opt in to help Tile members find their trackers. If they do so, that would expand Tile’s crowd-finding network by up to 10x.

AirTags come in only one round, button-like design, but the Tile line offers more options. The Tile Mate has the most general-purpose design, with an opening in the top-left corner that lets you attach a keychain, lanyard, or similar tether. It’s a round-cornered square that’s around 1.49 inches across and 0.28 inches thick—smaller than a matchbook. The Tile Slim is designed to slide easily into a wallet; it’s in the shape of a credit card, and at 2.5 millimeters, it’s as thick as three of them. The Tile Sticker is roughly the size of five quarters stacked, and the small, round tracker sticks with adhesive to whatever you want to track. This makes the Sticker a good option for anything that doesn’t have a key ring or tether, and because this tracker is so small, you can attach it in a discreet spot.

In our distance test, all four Tile variations offered impressive range. We placed them at one end of Wirecutter’s 190-foot-long office, and all remained connected to our phone as we walked to the other end. We were able to hear them chirping from that far, too, which means you’ll likely be able to hear them in most houses or apartments (190 feet is more than double the length of a basketball court).

While the previous-generation Tile Mate ran on a user-replaceable CR1632 lithium battery, the newest edition has a sealed-in battery that’s supposed to last for up to three years. Tile insists that the tracker is recyclable at the end of its life, but we can’t help but see this as a step backward in terms of hardware longevity. Unfortunately, neither the Tile Slim nor the Tile Sticker use a replaceable battery either, though Tile says their batteries also last for up to three years. (The Tile Pro has a replaceable battery that should last you about a year before you’ll need a new one.) The entire Tile lineup is rated IP67, so each tracker is protected against dust and should survive being submerged in water up to 1 meter deep for up to 30 minutes.

The Tile Mate, the Tile Pro, and the Tile Slim now have QR codes on the back that read, “Scan me if found.” When scanned, a website that says the attached item is lost pops up on the finder’s phone; doing so sends the Tile’s location to its owner. The owner can also choose to put the Tile in lost mode and share their phone number and a message so that the finder can text or call them to return what’s been lost.

Tile offers Tile Premium , an optional, $3-per-month (or $30-per-year) subscription plan that covers as many Tiles as you own. The service includes free battery replacements shipped to you each year (for the Tile Mate and the Tile Pro), an extended warranty (from one year to three), and SMS-based support. On the software side, it offers a 30-day location history, unlimited sharing of your Tile trackers’ locations, and smart alerts that let you know when you’ve left home without any of your Tiles. (The last feature is based on entering your home address, and in our testing we could get a third of a mile away before receiving the alert, which isn’t super handy.) Aside from separation notifications, Apple doesn’t provide any of these features with an AirTag. For $100 a year, Tile also offers Premium Protect , which has the same features plus a $1,000-per-year reimbursement for ( most ) registered items that are lost. Tile Premium is an unnecessary expense for most people, but Premium Protect may be worth the investment if you’re tracking something valuable.

Setting up any Tile is simple: Instead of having to go into your phone’s Settings menu to add the Tile, the Tile app ( Android , iOS ) handles everything. You just launch the app, tap a button to add a new Tile, and press firmly on the Tile’s center button when prompted. If you have an iPhone, Apple’s AirTag setup may be a little more automatic, but both processes are fast and simple.

In the app, you can name each Tile whatever you like and add a photo; for example, if you have a Tile Mate in your backpack, you can add a photo of the backpack for that particular Tile. You can view your devices—all Tiles, your paired phone, and any other phones and tablets running the Tile app under your account—in list or map mode. You can pair an unlimited number of Tiles with a phone, but only four Tiles can actively communicate with an Android phone (via Bluetooth) at once. An unlimited number of Tiles can communicate with an Apple device at once.

Tiles have less precision than AirTags over short distances because they use a standard form of Bluetooth, without the layer of Ultra Wideband technology that makes the Find My app so accurate. In oral testimony to Congress (PDF) presented by its general counsel Kirsten Daru in April 2021, Tile said it had developed a product that uses Ultra Wideband technology but that Apple was preventing compatibility with iPhones.

Chipolo will release new Google Find My Device-compatible Bluetooth trackers, the $28 Chipolo One Point and the $35 Chipolo Card Point trackers, on May 27. These are some of the first trackers on the market to use the global network of Android devices to track items, similar to the way Apple's AirTags use the iOS Find My network. We plan to test them as soon as they become available to see how they compare to our current Android tracker pick, the Tile Mate.

Apple shared details about its upcoming iOS 17 rollout at its June Worldwide Developers Conference. The new iOS will introduce increased shareability for Apple's AirTags, which will be shareable with up to five other users. Once you’ve chosen a group of friends or family to share an AirTag with, everyone in the group will be able to track that AirTag in the Find My app, as well as have an AirTag play sound and use Precision Finding to find the exact location of a nearby AirTag. iOS 17 is expected in the Fall, likely timed alongside new iPhones in September.

Striking a balance between privacy and security with an item meant to track your stuff is difficult, and a device that tracks your location presents a number of concerns. Beyond the worry about what the tracker maker does with your location information, there’s also the potential for intentional misuse and abuse by bad actors. Apple and Tile take different approaches on both fronts.

Apple says it designed the AirTag with privacy in mind. Because the location data is encrypted end-to-end, no one other than you—not even Apple—can see where your AirTag is. Back when Apple made the AirTag announcement and released the details, the company also outlined the device’s built-in protections intended to prevent AirTags from enabling certain types of abuse . For example, if someone tries to track you surreptitiously by throwing an AirTag into your bag, your iPhone (if you use one) will notice a foreign tracker following you around and send you an alert on your phone. If you're an Android user, you can download Apple's free Tracker Detect app from the Google Play Store to scan for AirTags that may be surreptitiously spying on you. According to CNET , the AirTag will start beeping within eight to 24 hours of being separated from the owner’s phone.

Soon after release, The Washington Post (subscription required) tested the AirTag privacy features with iPhones, and concluded that the features Apple added to limit stalking may not deter bad behavior as much as one might hope. A New York Times (subscription required) report noted, “In recent months, people have posted on TikTok, Reddit and Twitter about finding AirTags on their cars and in their belongings.” Vice had similar findings when combing through police reports. Since launch, Apple has tweaked this behavior to shorten the time before the AirTag starts beeping, tuned the sound the AirTag makes so it’s easier to hear, and expanded on its documentation for how to handle unwanted tracking.

Tile has a “Scan and Secure” feature in its mobile app that allows you to manually scan for nearby Tile devices, which is similar to the AirTag app for Android. To scan for an unknown Tile device, you’ll need to download the app, accept permissions requests for either Bluetooth or location, and then drive (or walk) around for 10 minutes before you get a report on whether or not a Tile tracker is traveling with you.

Tile representatives have told us that the company uses your phone’s location data in four ways: determining where you are in relation to your stuff, periodically determining the location of each tracker, noting your location if you’re in range of someone else’s lost tracker, and (if you contact Tile’s support staff) determining the approximate location of your computer or other device by IP address. We don’t think any of these uses is particularly invasive for a device that you’re purchasing to locate you and your lost items, and Tile told us it doesn’t “use revenue generating advertising in our products or services that could give third parties access to certain information for monetary gain.”

In February 2023, Tile rolled out a new feature called Anti-Theft Mode , which is supposed to make it easier to find a stolen item with a Tile attached to it by hiding its presence notification when someone scans for nearby Tiles. This would make it more difficult for thieves to find the Tile on the item they’ve stolen and remove it. Tile requires anyone setting up Anti-Theft Mode to go through a rigorous identification verification process, including providing government-issued ID and biometric verification. This process is designed to deter Tile owners from using the devices for illegal activity, like stalking, through a lack of anonymity.

We combed through the privacy policies of both companies and reached out with clarifying questions about our most critical concerns regarding these types of trackers. Here’s how they compare:

Chipolo’s One Spot uses Apple’s Find My network, meaning it’s just as likely that someone’s iPhone will anonymously find your lost tracker as it is with an AirTag. But the One Spot has only one advantage over the AirTag—a keychain hole as part of its design—and a number of disadvantages. It doesn’t have the precise finding capabilities, it’s not as resistant to the elements, and it’s physically larger. Unlike the Chipolo One (2020) (which is physically identical but uses Chipolo’s crowd-finding network instead of Apple’s), the One Spot can’t be used to trigger an alert on your phone, nor can it let you know if you’ve left something behind. There’s no reason to choose the One Spot over the AirTag, especially since they cost about the same.

The Tile Pro (2022) is a more expensive and slightly larger, fob-shaped version of the Tile tracker, with a longer range. Tile says this model will stay connected for up to 400 feet, or 40 feet longer than the length of a football field. In our tests the Tile Pro remained connected for the entire length of our 190-foot office. Though a longer range is better, we’ve concluded that in almost any scenario around a home or office, the Tile Mate is sufficient. If your house is longer than 400 feet, you can swing the extra $10 for the Tile Pro. The Pro is also the only current Tile tracker that uses a replaceable battery, but it lasts only one year, compared to the other models’ three.

Orbit offers a number of tracker styles, including the Orbit Glasses tracker, which fits on eyeglasses or sunglasses. Unfortunately the Orbit network is just too limited for us to recommend choosing Orbit over Tile. Anecdotally, I lost a pair of sunglasses that were outfitted with the Orbit Glasses tracker in busy and tech-heavy New York City. And despite marking them as lost in the app in hopes of an Orbit user passing by and finding them, I never received a notice that the sunglasses were found.

Cube offers three designs of its tracker: the Cube , the Cube Pro , and the Cube Shadow , the last of which is a slim, wallet-friendly size. Though the Cube Shadow promises the same range as the Tile Slim, the Cube and Cube Pro offer half the range of the Tile Mate and Tile Pro, respectively, and the entire Cube family has a smaller crowd-finding network than Tile’s trackers.

Meet your guide

Nick Guy is a former senior staff writer covering Apple and accessories at Wirecutter. He has been reviewing iPhones, iPads, and related tech since 2011—and stopped counting after he tested his 1,000th case. It’s impossible for him not to mentally catalog any case he sees. He once had the bright idea to build and burn down a room to test fireproof safes.

Further reading

The Best GPS Dog Collars and Pet Trackers

by Kaitlyn Wells and Nick Guy

The Whistle Go Explore is the best and most accurate pet GPS tracker for finding lost pups and wayward cats.

Apple AirTags Are the Best Luggage Trackers

by Caitlin McGarry

Worried about luggage going missing during holiday travel? How Apple’s AirTag and Android’s Tile Mate can help you keep tabs on it—even when the airline can’t.

Understanding Bluetooth Pairing Problems

by Kevin Purdy

Bluetooth devices don’t always play nicely together, especially in groups. We explain why it’s hard for them to connect sometimes, and what you can do about it.

The Oura Ring Is a $300 Sleep Tracker That Provides Tons of Data. But Is It Worth It?

by Ayanna Redwood-Crawford

The Oura Ring is a wearable tracker that collects tons of data about your body and sleep. Here’s what you should know if you’re considering it.

On The Go Solo

Solo travel tips and advice for adventurers and dreamers.

Outstanding Apps For Die-Hard Travelers: Polarsteps

Update: march 17, 2024.

An abbreviated version of this article now appears on YouTube as an instructional video. Click below to view it:

Introduction

I started using the  Polarsteps app in March 2018 at the outset of a 31-day trip to Dubai, Australia, and Thailand and immediately got hooked on it. I’ll be honest. I’ve always thought taking photos and keeping a journal while traveling were self-indulgent and a waste of time. But there’s something about the visual, tangible, and timely nature of this app that really appeals to me.

Gone are the days when a travel journal was just a series of long text passages accompanied by related photographs. Polarsteps succeeds by seamlessly and easily merging the two into a professional and visually spectacular photo journal.

To view the online version of the Polarsteps Travel Tracker journal I put together during my Australia trip, click here .

If you’ve got any additional feedback, let me know via the Comment section below.

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Update: April 1, 2023

We’re a bit late bringing you all this news, but Polarsteps surpassed the 5 million user mark in December last year. According to their press page, the app’s renewed popularity with travelers was due to a “huge surge in travel to Southeast Asia and Australia” as Covid restrictions were eased or eliminated in those destinations. Perhaps even more impressive is the fact that the app reached 4 million users only a short time before they hit the 5 million user milestone. Which reinforces our belief here at On The Go Solo that this app has a lot to offer travelers. For details on how it can help you memorialize your own travels, continue reading below. And as always, Travel On!

Update: May 15, 2022

Now that the world is starting to open back up again, travel is once again on our minds. So we’ve taken a fresh look at Polarsteps and were pleased to see that they haven’t let the pandemic slow down the development of the app. Last summer, they added a new feature called Polarsteps Guides , which we’re very impressed with. Polarsteps describes these guides by saying:

Created by experienced travel editors with the help of Polarsteps’ travelers, this unique guide formula allows travelers to spend less time seeking and more time turning travel dreams into travel realities.

Each guide is written by a Polarsteps editor and provides a curated collection of “best of” and “can’t miss” items for each destination. The content is organized into three categories: See & Do , Stay , and Eat & Drink , as shown below for the San Francisco guide.

Each of these categories is further broken down into sub-categories, providing an impressive level of detail, as shown below for the San Francisco Eat & Drink  category.

As you cans see, the presentation of the information is thoughtful and intuitive, with a map showing exactly where each option is located. Below the map, you’re provided with filters that allow you to quickly filter the category options to suit your tastes and/or budget. So for Food & Drink, you can filter by Top 20 , Food , Coffee , and so on. For the Stay category, you can filter by Campgrounds , Hostels , Hotels , and so on.

One feature we really like is that unlike other travel guides, the Polarsteps Guides don’t include every option in every category and sub-category; the guides only include the restaurants or activities or accommodations that they recommend. This cuts down on the volume of information the user is presented with and makes it easier to decide.

Overall, these guides are a useful and valuable addition to the Polarsteps app, helping make it easier to plan your trip and get the most out of your travels.

Update: January 9, 2021

Like most people, we haven’t been traveling at all in the past 10 months. As such, we were unaware until recently that the Polarsteps app added a major new feature last summer. It’s called Travel Tracker . When you create a future trip, you now have the option to specify how you plan to travel between places. In the past, your map always showed a straight line between each of your travel steps. With this new feature, the map of your trip now shows the actual route you took/will take. It also provides information about the cost of each of the options: by car, by bus, by taxi, by train, etc.+

When you create a new step, you are automatically presented with a Choose your route screen that allows you to define how you went/will go from one location to the next.

When you click the Okay, got it! button, you can then swipe left to see the route options. Depending on where you intend to go, these can include car, bus, train, taxi, walking, or flying or a combination of some of those. The distance, estimated travel time, and approximate price is also provided for each option.

Note: The Travel Tracker feature is unavailable if you are creating a record of a trip that has already concluded. It is only available for trips occurring at the moment or in the future. We’re not sure why this is the case as it would seem to be useful in all cases.

Update: February 18, 2020

Just heard from Polarsteps Support and as expected, if you add video and then order a travel book, the video component is ignored. They don’t insert still frames from the video or do anything like that.

Update: December 12, 2019

Polarsteps has just updated the app to allow users to include videos in their steps. This is a huge improvement to an already excellent travel resource. Some important things to know about this new feature:

• You can only upload video from the Polarsteps mobile app. I tried and failed to do it from a web browser and it kept failing with no error message or explanation. It was only when I searched Google that I found out why I was having trouble.
• The online help for the web version still says that you cannot upload videos, so it was no help in figuring out why it failed on the desktop version.

• The mobile help page is broken, so there’s no way to check if it mentions this new feature or not.
• There’s no mention of how video content will be represented in the printed travel book: will it be completely ignored? Will it display the first frame of the video? Will it display all frames of the video? I’ve contacted Polarsteps support to get an answer and will post it here when they reply.

Strengths of the App

Polarsteps benefits from the following four general strengths:

• Ease of setup
• Ease of use
• Cool features

Each of these facets is described in detail below, along with a few comments on areas I see for improvement.

The app is available for Android and iOS devices. There’s also a website version you can access from your desktop at https://www.polarsteps.com/

Ease of Setup

As with all good apps, Polarsteps can be set up quickly and with almost no effort. After locating the app in either the Apple App Store or the Google Play store, you simply click to download it to your device. After it downloads, you create a user ID and password and that’s it: you’re ready to start planning your next trip.

On a scale of 1 (poor) to 10 (fantastic), I would give it a score of 9 for Ease of Setup. It doesn’t get a 10 because the online help system is buried deep in the app. It appears as the 12th of 19 options listed on the Settings screen. To be truly user-friendly, the help should be directly accessible from all screens within the app.

Ease of Use

Polarsteps login.

The Polarsteps login process is straightforward and hassle free. After you’ve created an account, you simply click the Polarsteps icon on your mobile phone and then click the Log in link at the bottom of the Polarsteps default screen.

How to Use Polarsteps: Creating a New Trip

How to Use Polarsteps: Adding Steps to a Trip Timeline

As you can see in the image, Polarsteps has inserted a new step suggestion called Tambon Khao Mai Kaeo (the location I was visiting at the time) into my timeline. It has also plotted the location of Tambon Khao Mai Kaeo on the map. If I choose to discard this suggestion, Polarsteps automatically removes the marker from the map.

How to Use Polarsteps: Sharing Trips to Social Media

Cool Features

There are a lot of cool features with this app, the major ones of which I’ve listed below.

Step Suggestions

As mentioned previously, the Suggestion steps that are automatically inserted into the timeline make it fast and easy to add new entries and photos. If you’re having an active journey, they also serve as a useful reminder of things you’ve done or places you’ve been that might be worth writing about.

Homepage Details

The homepage lists a summary of each of your past and current trips along with statistics for each one.

The following information is available at a glance:

• How many miles/kilometers you’ve traveled
• The number of countries and continents you have visited
• How much of the world you’ve seen.
• The number of travelers whose journals you are following
• The number of travelers or would-be travelers who are following you

“Furthest place from home” Graphic

A minor but fun and interesting feature included in the statistics is a Furthest place from home  graphic that shows on a world map the place you traveled to that was furthest from your home.

Editors’ Choice List

If none of the selections appeals to you, you can use the search field to locate travelers or trips related to the specific countries or regions you want to visit.

Note that Polarsteps protects your privacy even with this search engine. Trips will only appear in the search results if the trip is marked as viewable by anyone. Or if the traveler has specifically designated you as someone who should have access to it.

Polarsteps Cost

The app is free to download, making it a no-brainer in terms of trying it out. No need to search for a Polarsteps discount code or anything like that.

From a bandwidth point of view, the app uses very little memory, so the “cost” in terms of battery drainage is also minimal. I had the app running the entire month I was traveling and did not need to charge my smartphone any more often than normal.

After your trip ends, you have the option of purchasing a printed version of your journal. As of February 2019, there is a five-tiered pricing structure based on the size of the book. The smallest, at 24 pages, costs 30 euros. The largest, at 300 pages, costs 80 euros. Polarsteps offers an early adopter discount of 10 euros on your purchase if you enter the code that appears on their website.

Quick Review: My Polarsteps Travel Book

I ordered the Polarsteps travel book for my recent trip to Australia and was very pleased with its quality and layout. In terms of appearance, the Polarsteps photo book looks just as professional and sleek as any coffee table book you’d see in a book store. Inside, each of the steps you created during your trip is presented on a separate page, with the date, weather conditions, altitude, and GPS coordinates of the locale in the picture.

If you enjoyed using Polarsteps during your trip, I’d strongly recommend paying for the print version of your journal.

Problems with the App

I encountered no signficant problems with the app during the four trips I’ve used it on .

A concern I had prior to the trip was that it would drain my smartphone battery. As noted above, this turned out to be a non-issue.

Minor Gripe #1

(Added April 24, 2019) I’ve now completed my fourth trip using the app, so I’m able to note recurring issues I have with it. One thing I wish the developers would fix soon is the way the start and end dates are handled. Right now, it’s not possible to manually start or end your trip. The app uses midnight on the date you select as the starting and ending point. That means that if your trip starts at 6pm on a Sunday, the app will be tracking your movements all day before you leave. The same with your end date. If your trip ends at 10am on a Monday, the tracker will keep monitoring you until midnight. The workaround, which is clumsy, is to go to the Trip settings screen and turn off the tracker. Considering how intuitive the rest of the app is, it seems strange that this issue is handled so poorly. A relatively simple solution would be to incorporate Start Trip and Stop Trip buttons into the interface.

Minor Gripe #2

<Note: This gripe has been rendered moot by the introduction of the Travel Tracker feature in July 2020. See the note above from January 9, 2021.>

Another thing I wish the Polarsteps app did a better job of is plotting my actual movements on the map. Currently, the app draws a line directly from one point to another. In doing so, it ignores the real geography of the areas I walked. This proved to be a major limitation when I went for a walk around northern Sydney Harbour. The app plotted my starting point (Manly Wharf) and then seemed to plot my location only every 5 or 10 minutes or so. It then connected these points, ignoring the winding path through parks and along beaches that I actually took. The image shows the actual walk I did (yellow line) and the Polarsteps version of the walk (red line).

Note that this is a modified image. In the original there is no yellow line and the red line is actually white. I changed it to red to make it stand out more in contrast to the yellow line.

Because Polarsteps draws straight lines across the maps, they tend to end up looking very messy. This is especially true if you happen to walk in the same general area numerous times. An improvement to the mapping feature within the app would be to have it plot a user’s position more frequently. Say every minute or two.

Minor Gripe #3

One gripe about the travel book: the cover features the first photo that appears in your journal. For me, this was my starting point (Nice, France) rather than the destination of my trip (Australia). So my travel journal for Australia features a picture of the Port of Nice on the cover. A better approach would be to allow users to select the cover photo manually.

(Update: February 19, 2019) It turns out you can  change the default image that appears for your trip. And it’s easy and quick to do by completing the following steps:

• Open the trip whose cover photo you want to change.
• ( Smartphone app only ) Tap the red Trip Menu icon in the top right corner of the screen. Note: There is no Trip Menu option in the desktop version of Polarsteps, so desktop users should jump directly to Step 3.
• Click or tap the Trip settings option.
• Click or tap the Change photo button.
• Select the photo you want to use as the cover.
• ( Desktop users only ) Click the Select cover photo button. ( Smartphone app only ) Tap  Save in the top right corner of the screen.

Overall Review

This is a very valuable app that made it easy, fun, and engaging to create a journal of what I was seeing and doing every day. The photo and location prompts that appeared automatically in the timeline really encouraged me to create new steps. I used this app again on a short trip I took to Spain last May and it performed very well again.

Related Links

If you found this information helpful, check out these other posts:

• Outstanding Apps For Die-Hard Travelers: ScottsCheapFlights.com
• How To Curse Like A Leprechaun
• Travel Books That’ll Knock Your Socks Off: “The Good Girl’s Guide to Getting Lost”
• Is It Safe to Travel to . . . ?
• Semi-True Tales from My Life So Far: Hot-Pot, Stop-Cop, Me-Pee

Join the conversation! 21 Comments

Can you use it retrospectively ie for making a digital journey using photos you have already taken?

Hi Patricia. Thanks for contacting On the Go Solo. If you log in to Polarsteps, the first option you have is “Add a past, current, or future trip,” so the short answer to your question is yes, you can document a trip you’ve already taken. That said, it would be a lot of work to do all of this manually. Polarsteps normally automatically tracks where you are and when you arrive so you don’t need to worry about that. Doing this yourself would require creating a step, entering a town/city name or geographic coordinates for that step, and then trying to remember the date and time you visited the locale. Only after doing that would you be ready to write the text to accompany the step. The upside is, after you did all this hard work, you’d be able to get the journey printed in book format as a high-quality memento. The book I had printed after my Australia trip is the best souvenir I’ve ever gotten from a trip.

Yes, you can!

How does it work in terms of data usage? If I’m trying to minimize data usage due to my phone plan when traveling internationally, am I limited by this? e.g. I would typically turn off my data except when I’m on free WiFi. Does that mean it wouldn’t work for me? Thanks!

Hi Sheila. Thanks for contacting On the Go Solo. In answer to your question, the Polarsteps app is able to track your geolocation using your phone’s built-in GPS and/or the location of any Wifi access points you log into. As a result, it works fine even if data is turned off. When I traveled to Dubai, Australia, and Thailand last year, I kept data turned off on my phone to avoid roaming charges and it had no impact on the accuracy, speed, or functionality of the Polarsteps app. I’d say give it a try and see if you like it — it’s free and quick to install/uninstall so there’s little to no risk involved in adding it to your smartphone.

[…] Rapt with this app: Polarsteps review […]

[…] Travel apps: Polarsteps review […]

Can,anyone tell me how to make changes to steps BEFORE I start my trip? I completed 19 steps finishing at home where I started a;d now I can’t access any of the steps to enter changes in my plans.

Hi John. Thanks for contacting us at OnTheGoSolo.com. When viewed on a tablet or mobile, every step that we click to open contains an Edit step button even if the trip has been completed. If it doesn’t appear in your version, send us a screenshot and we’ll try to help you figure out what’s going wrong. Our contact email is [email protected] .

Hi, I have Polarsteps on two devises, previous trips are on the second devise but it’s not showing the most recent trip? Just find it easier to edit on the larger devise. Can anyone suggest a fix?

Hi Helen. Thanks for contacting us at OnTheGoSolo.com. Here’s how we fixed this issue. Open the device that is not showing the new trip. Click the gear icon in the top right of the screen. On the Settings screen that appears, scroll to the very bottom and click the Log out link. Log back in and the Polarsteps server will automatically grab the latest version of your account, which will include your new trip.

[…] Travel Apps You’ll Use Daily: Polarsteps review […]

I can find the end button trip…..

Hi Pedro. There is no End trip button – that’s one of the frustrating missing features in the app. Your trip ends at midnight on the last day you have listed. So if your actual trip ends at 10 in the morning, the app continues to track all of your movements for another 14 hours after you’ve returned home.

Hi thanks for the good info. I travel full-time so want this app to document my fav places with attatched photos on a satelite map. All good so far but the white lines are crazy and erratic , can they be disabled just leaving my places of interest and photos. Also I don’t want an end date yet as I have been travelling full-time for eight years so there is no definite end time. Thanks in advance.

Hi Neville, thanks for contacting On The Go Solo. We agree that the white lines on the Polarsteps maps are terrible. If you use the same location as a base for multiple days, you end up with a spiderweb of white lines going in every direction, obsuring the map. We’re not sure how you would disable all lines, but you can delete individual ones. In the mobile app, zoom in as far as you can on the start of the line you want to delete and then long-touch it until a delete option appears at the bottom of the screen. It might take you four or five tries to get the delete button to appear — the feature is badly designed and seems to work only some of the time. As for end dates, why not set some random time very far in the future as your end date and modify it when you reach the end of your travels?

Hi, Can you only add photos etc once you have arrived in a place? I can’t see any ‘edit’ button on the steps I have added for a future trip.

Hi Robyn, thanks for contacting OnTheGoSolo.com. Yours is an usual request and I couldn’t figure out any way to do what you want directly. I did come up with a possible workaround, but it’s kind of messy and you’d need to test it out first on a sample trip to make sure it works. The workaround is to set up a trip with a start date in the past. Then add each of your future steps in chronological order, but using dates that have already occurred. Next, go into each step and add the photos you want. After you actually visit each of the locations during your upcoming trip, change the dummy date for that step to the real date. The big downside I see of this is that your travel tracker (the line on the map that tracks where you are and where you’ve been) might get totally confused and display inaccurate data. Also, you would be unable to hide any of your upcoming steps from the people authorized to view your trip: as far as Polarsteps is concerned, all of your steps would be in the past, so they would be visible. Hope this helps. Travel on!

Thanks so much for all this information! Super helpful! We are going to drive overland from Europe to Asia and we’re considering to use this app and share our route. Our only concern is that we don’t want to have the exact location where we will be right now showing on the map, for safety reason. Is there a possibility to delay the tracking? Or what would you suggest? Thanks and greetings from Switzerland, Kat

Hi Kat, thanks for contacting OnTheGoSolo.com. There are a few ways you can do this, so it depends on how private you want to be. To start, open the app on your mobile and go to your trip and click Trip Menu > Trip settings. Scroll down to the Who can see this trip? section and tap to open it. Your choices here are Only me, My followers, and Public. If you choose Only me , then no one will know where you are — your trip will not be visible if anyone searches for it through the Polarsteps search engine. If you choose My followers , you can let your family and friends see where you are, but still avoid letting the general public know this information. As far as we can tell, you can’t hide an individual step on your trip, although you can hide upcoming steps by deselecting the Also show planned steps option on the Trip settings screen. Hope this helps. Travel on!

Comments are closed.

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Best Apps for Finding Where Shows and Movies Are Streaming

Free apps and websites now search hundreds of channels and services to help you find favorite films and programs

Here’s an issue that’s become a bone of contention between my wife and me: We want to watch a TV show or film that’s streaming but can’t remember whether it’s on a  subscription service , such as Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu, or Netflix;  a free service , such as Pluto TV or Tubi; or one of the network apps, such as Max, Paramount+, or Peacock. I don’t mind searching around a bit, but my wife finds sifting through each service painfully tedious.

There are easier ways to find out what’s streaming.

Streaming media players , including Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, and Roku, will look through various services to find specific titles. Many smart TVs now do the same. But the search functions aren’t always easy to use, and they can be limited in what they find. And so, I often rely on free websites and mobile apps that do a much better job of hunting.

A few years ago, there were maybe a dozen apps or websites from which to choose, but the options have narrowed. Right now, I mainly use two: JustWatch and Reelgood , though I have tried out three more, TV Time , Watchworthy , and a newer app called Qewd . I haven’t yet spent all that much time with Qewd, but it does have some interesting social features.

All five of these free tools search across multiple streaming services as well as some “TV Everywhere” apps that let you stream content that you’re already paying for through a cable or satellite TV subscription.

Here’s how they compare.

Website, and Android and iOS Apps

JustWatch has upped its game in recent years, greatly expanding by acquiring rival GoWatchIt. It has a large list of supported subscription services, including newer ones such as Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO Max, Paramount+, and Peacock. It also works with several free ad-supported ones.

The service is easy to use: You enter the movie or show you want to watch and JustWatch will tell you where you can stream it. If it’s available to rent or buy, it will show you where to find the lowest price. JustWatch will also make movie and TV show recommendations based on what people with similar tastes are watching.

The site’s home page shows you what’s new and popular. You can add TV shows and movies to your watchlist by using a bookmark icon, and you can limit searches to services you already use by choosing them from a row of icons. A feature called TV Show Tracking lets you track shows you’ve started watching or saved to your watchlist. If you’ve watched all the episodes of a show, you can get an alert when a new episode or season becomes available.

Source: JustWatch Source: JustWatch

JustWatch organizes titles in dozens of ways, including by genre, what’s highly rated or trending, and what’s new to a service. It can even offer selections based on what mood you’re in. Now that many movie theaters are open again, JustWatch also shows you the top five movies currently playing, and provides alerts when they become available for streaming on one of your services.

JustWatch now has a Play on TV feature, which lets you choose and play content for your television right from the smartphone app. You need to have JustWatch apps on both your smartphone and the TV for that to work, and both need to be signed on to the same WiFi network. You choose the program or movie on the smartphone app, tap Play on TV, and the JustWatch TV app launches the selected streaming service. The TV app is available for Android and Google TV, Apple TV, Fire TV, LG and Samsung smart TVs, and Xbox consoles. It also works with Roku devices using the smartphone app by itself; you don’t need the JustWatch app on the Roku.

You can access JustWatch using a web browser on your computer and through Android and iOS phone apps. One app exclusive is that it can give you daily deal updates on rentals and purchases.

While JustWatch is free, you can opt for a Pro version ($2.50 a month) that removes banner ads, gives you dozens more custom lists beyond the two free ones, and provides enhanced filtering options.

Website, and Android and iOS/tvOS Apps

Reelgood has greatly expanded the number of streaming services and TV channels it tracks, too, now covering over 150—and counting. It’s the app I currently use the most.

When you first sign up, you check each of the services you have access to, and Reelgood searches across all of them. (It helped me realize that I now subscribe to a dozen streaming services—yikes!) You can add “free” as a search item, and it will look for free content from networks, along with ad-supported platforms such as Crackle, and PlutoTV.

Reelgood covers all the major subscription services (Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and Netflix); niche ones like Acorn TV and Mubi; free services such as Freevee, PlutoTV, and Tubi; and premium channels, such as Max and Showtime. It also includes Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO Max, Paramount+, and Peacock. Reelgood will also check TV Everywhere channels you can stream if you subscribe to a traditional pay-TV package. There’s even a section where you can find out where to rent or buy newer movies from pay-per-view services such as Amazon, Apple iTunes, and Vudu.

You can browse by title or genre, or simply scroll through rows of recommended content organized under headings such as “Popular Movies," "Trending TV Shows,” “Top 10 This Week," and "2024 Most Anticipated." You also explore what’s new, what’s coming soon, and what’s leaving soon, to help you prioritize what to watch next. Once you find something you want to view, you can add it to your watch list, rate it, see the trailer, or mark it seen. If it’s available, just press the play button and it will launch that service with your show pulled up.

Source: Reelgood Source: Reelgood

The service also lets you follow shows and movies. For TV shows, click “Track Series" on the show’s product card to build a lineup of unwatched episodes. For movies, click the “Want to See” button on a title to add it to a watchlist. Your “Watch Next” section will let you know when new episodes or movies are available.

Reelgood will now remember where you were on programs from more than 150 services, so you can pick up right where you left off.

Reelgood’s Play to TV feature lets you play anything available on the Reelgood app directly on your smart TV just by clicking on the icon. Right now this feature is supported on Android, Fire TV, LG, and Roku smart TVs. When you select a program, it shows you a list of supported devices on your WiFi network, and you simply tap the one where you’d like to play it. You can use the app as a basic TV remote control.

You can access Reelgood online via its website, and it now has apps for both Apple iOS and Google Android smartphones as well as for Apple TV (tvOS), Android and Fire TVs, plus LG smart TVs. There’s no Roku app yet, but you can use the Reelgood mobile app on your phone to control a Roku TV or streaming player.

Website , and Android and iOS Apps

This service, self-described as a TV show and movie calendar with a strong social element, is newer to me; it lets you track shows and movies, discover which ones you should watch next, and get notifications when new ones that you want to watch become available. You can locate new movies or TV shows using the search bar, or find new content using a Discover icon at the bottom of the page. You can’t, however, watch shows directly from the app.

Every user gets their own profile. When you visit for the first time, you’re asked to pick the shows and movies you either watch or plan to watch from a scrolling list. You can also note where you left off on a TV series, so you’ll start an episode right after the one you viewed, or where you left off in the show if you didn’t finish it.

Source: TV Time Source: TV Time

The app has two main sections: Watchlist, which has the shows and movies you track, and Upcoming, which posts on a calendar when the next episodes or seasons of shows you’re tracking will be available. In addition to tracking content and letting you know where to watch it, you’ll get recommendations based on what you’ve watched. Once you mark a show as watched, you can rate it or attach an emoticon, and indicate your favorite characters.

Using the Discover feature, you can get program recommendations based on the shows or genres you’ve viewed, or see which movies and series are trending among other users of the service. A “Discover More” section lets you filter your search by genre, status, and more. You can also see which shows or movies have been watched by your friends, and what other fans of the show are saying without getting spoilers. You can earn various “badges” for your profile by commenting and interacting with the TV Time community.

When you make a selection, you’ll get sent to the streaming app, but there’s no option to play the program directly on your TV as you can do with other services.

Watchworthy

Android and iOS Apps

Like the other apps,  Watchworthy  allows you to find shows by choosing the services you subscribe to or use. What makes it stand out is that it does a nice job of providing personalized, crowdsourced recommendations from parent company Ranker. You can build a watchlist of shows from TV networks and more than 200 streaming services, including popular ones such as Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu, Paramount+, Peacock, and Netflix. Right now the service doesn’t track movies, but the company says that feature is on its radar.

At the start, you spend about a minute swiping left and right, liking and disliking shows. (You can swipe up if you’re not quite sure.) Then Watchworthy begins to send recommendations based on your responses. Each show on the list of recommendations features a “Worthy” score that predicts how much you’ll love it. (You can find these shows in a "Worthy" section of the app; the higher the Worthy score, the more likely you’ll enjoy the show.) You add recommendations to your watchlist by clicking on a plus sign.

New features include “Worthy Services,” which can help you figure out which streaming services are worth keeping based on their content libraries, and “Watch Together,” which lets you become "friends" with other Watchworthy users to compile a shared watchlist based on everyone’s personal tastes.

Source: Watchworthy Source: Watchworthy

Like the other services, Watchworthy lets you limit your results to shows from services you have access to. You can filter shows by air date, streaming service and genre, or even by MPAA rating if you have kids. There are also curated content selections based on themes such as The Weekly Buzz, Workplace Comedies, Funniest Shows, or British Sitcoms, organized by their Worthy score. Once you select a show, you can start watching it either directly from your device or by casting it to your TV.

While the company has been promising to add movie recommendations to the app, that hasn’t happened yet. Right now, Watchworthy is available as either an Android or iOS app, but the company says it will add apps later this year for additional devices, including Amazon Fire, Apple TV, and Roku streaming players.

The newest entry to this group, Qewd is a free app for Android and Apple mobile devices. It not only helps you find where shows and movies are streaming but also adds a social element that lets you get recommendations from your network of friends, family, and even brands and influencers you follow.

When you download the app, you can enter the major streaming platforms you subscribe to and use most often, plus your favorite genres, and then sift through a list of free ad-supported services you use. In addition, users can create and share broad (“favorite comedies”) or specialized (“movies starring Keanu Reeves”) Qewd watchlists. Because Qewd connects to all streaming services it tracks, you can watch shows and movies with a single click.

In addition to helping you find out where shows and movies are streaming, Qewd acts as a “concierge”—the company’s word—that lets you bookmark content, and access and watch all of the services you subscribe to, as well as TikTok and YouTube, directly from the app. And when content jumps from one service to another, Qewd will automatically update its lists, the company says, taking you to the platform that currently has the title.

Source: QEWD Source: QEWD

Like other apps, Qewd keeps track of what you watch and enjoy so that it can recommend movies and shows for you to try. But to get recommendations from family and friends for the “What Your Friends Are Watching” section, you have to share access to your contacts with Qewd—which not everyone is comfortable doing.

Other features include the ability to collect videos from anywhere on the internet—YouTube, Vimeo, Reddit, Twitter, etc.—and save them in your playlist for playback later. You can also curate personal watchlists and share them with friends, family members, colleagues, or those on social media sites.

James K. Willcox

James K. Willcox leads Consumer Reports’ coverage of TVs, streaming media services and devices, broadband internet service, and the digital divide. He's also a homeowner covering several home improvement categories, including power washers and decking. A veteran journalist, Willcox has written for Business Week, Cargo, Maxim, Men’s Journal, Popular Science, Rolling Stone, Sound & Vision, and others. At home, he’s often bent over his workbench building guitars or cranking out music on his 7.2-channel home theater sound system.

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Onn Google TV Full HD Streaming Device

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Local election results: Labour and Tories now think Khan has won in London, amid 'wild' rumours; Cooper says party 'needs to reflect' on Gaza after council election results

The Tories suffer historic losses in the local elections, while Labour admit the party's stance on Gaza was "obviously" a factor in its failure to do even better. Meanwhile, both main parties now think Sadiq Khan has won a narrow victory in the London mayoral race, despite "wild rumours".

Friday 3 May 2024 21:56, UK

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• Labour and Tories now think Sadiq Khan to win narrowly in London - amid 'wild' rumours
• Labour shadow minister says 'we need to reflect' over Gaza stance 
• Labour wins mayoralty in PM's own backyard
• Relief for PM as Tory mayor clings on in key race
• But Sunak admits overall results are 'disappointing'
• Tories could be 'almost annihilated' at general election
• Starmer hails Labour wins - but admits Gaza cost him votes
• And party fears possible result to come in London mayoral contest
• Vote 2024: Council results in full  | Mayoral results as they happen  | Labour will fail to gain overall majority based on council election results - projection
• Live reporting by Katie Williams , Emily Mee , and (earlier) Andy Hayes and  Ben Bloch

It's a huge moment for the Lib Dems as they gain Dorset Council from the Conservatives.

The party took 13 seats from the Tories to secure an overall count of 42.

If you're just catching up, our political correspondent Serena Barker-Singh can get you up to speed in the space of a minute.

There's just a handful more council results set to be declared in what has been a bumper day of local elections.

We've had a few more through this evening - including a gain for the Lib Dems from no overall control in Tunbridge Wells.

The party won eight seats there, while the Tories lost three and Labour lost one.

The Lib Dems have also held Woking council after gaining four seats.

Elsewhere, Labour has held West Lancashire , while Elmbridge , Bristol and Cherwell remain under no overall control.

In the days running up to the elections, Number 10 was verging on the unsubtle.

Senior Downing Street figures were conceding that should Ben Houchen lose the mayoralty of the Tees Valley Combined Authority to Labour, there would be a challenge to Rishi Sunak. At that point they would be unable to stem the tide of letters sufficient to trigger a vote of no confidence.

In turn, this might have triggered an unwanted and catastrophic early election.

This is unusual behaviour - for the prime minister's closest allies to be openly speculating on his survivability - yet it is a sign of the turbulence of politics of the moment.

There was method in their madness.

Read more from our deputy political editor Sam Coates below...

People in Grimsby - one of Sky News's general election Target Towns - have been offering their views on the current state of politics in the country.

Bex Wright, who owns a barbershop in the town, tells our news correspondent Tom Parmenter that people don't "have trust in the government", while customer Matt Tucker says voters are "fed up" after being promised big changes in 2019.

You can watch the full clip below, and read all of our Target Towns coverage here .

As reported here today, rumours have swirled since polls closed last night that Sadiq Khan may have suffered a shock defeat to Tory candidate Susan Hall.

However, Sky News correspondents understand that key figures in both parties now believe the Labour incumbent has secured a relatively narrow victory.

Deputy political editor Sam Coates   said Labour MPs were more confident this evening that Sadiq Khan has "squeaked" the election.

Figures close to Ms Hall earlier said she was in with a chance of being named winner when results are announced tomorrow, with the suggestion "rattling around" all day.

But, Sam says, there has been a "shift" in the wake of the turnout results being published (more on that in our 20.13 post).

"Both Labour and key Conservative MPs now do think Sadiq Khan will have squeaked it tomorrow," he says.

"There are a lot fewer jitters than there were a few hours ago."

Indeed, Labour sources are also suggesting to Sky News political correspondent Rob Powell that rumours of Sadiq Khan's potential defeat may be exaggerated.

One said the "the fundamentals are good" while acknowledging "no one can possibly know the outcome of the vote at this stage - the count is tomorrow".

Another insider said: "It will be tight, but I think some rumours are a little wild."

A Labour MP has said there is "no doubt at all" the party's stance on Gaza has made some voters switch away. 

Clive Betts said people in his constituency had told him "very clearly" this was the case.

In one of the wards in his Sheffield South East constituency, which is usually one of Labour's safest, an independent councillor was elected "solely on the issue of Gaza", he says. 

"People voted on the basis they were not happy with Labour, not happy with its position on Gaza," he says.

"A lot of that was mistaken that we haven't changed our position on Gaza, but once people take a view that we've got it wrong, it's very difficult to change their minds."

He says Labour must "make it clear what Israel is doing in Gaza now is unacceptable" and if in government it should take sanctions against Israel if necessary and recognise a Palestinian state. 

While it hasn't enjoyed any thumping victories, Reform UK has proved "one of the most consequential" aspects of the election results for the Conservatives, says our deputy political editor Sam Coates .

The party has turned from a "polling phenomena into something that clearly takes votes from the Tories", he says.

Sam says the vote in the Blackpool by-election, where the Reform candidate came just 117 votes behind the second-place Tory candidate, indicates Reform will "eat into seats" in the next general election.

He points to 2019, when Boris Johnson won a huge majority after persuading the Brexit Party - the forerunner to Reform UK - to stand aside in key seats. The Tories will likely put "enormous pressure" on Reform UK to do the same thing, Sam notes.

But as it stands, Richard Tice's party is planning to stand in nearly every single seat in Great Britain this year, he says.

"That's why Reform is a really big issue."

Now Sophy Ridge wants to know whether Reform UK's "missing ingredient" is Nigel Farage, and asks if he is expected to return to frontline politics.

Richard Tice says they are "very good friends" and that Mr Farage "has got a big decision to make". 

He says the "more help Nigel can give, the better" and there is "no 'I' in 'team'". 

Mr Tice says Mr Farage is "the most famous politician in the country". 

Asked whether the former UKIP leader would want to come back, Mr Tice says: "Let's wait and see."

Reform UK leader Richard Tice is next up on the programme, and says he is "delighted" by his party's election results. 

He says his party had its "strongest by-election result by some margin" and is starting to win council seats. 

But Sophy Ridge points out that UKIP had outpolled Reform UK at local elections, and yet still wasn't able to win a seat in Westminster. 

She argues Reform UK will not get the cut-through when it comes to the general election. 

Mr Tice says this is "completely wrong" and the Tories are "facing annihilation". 

"We have two forms of socialism in the two main parties - there's no difference between the two of them," he says. 

Sophy asks whether he believes Rishi Sunak is a socialist, and he says it is "literally the definition" of socialism to raise taxes and spending. 

Reform UK has picked up two seats in Havant, but has not won any councils. 

In the Blackpool South by-election, the party came close to the Conservatives - taking 16.8% of the vote and coming just 117 votes behind the second-placed Tory candidate.

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Cycling GPS Location Tracker 4+

Find iphone, oksana nikita, designed for ipad, screenshots, description.

Cycling GPS Location Tracker: Track your running and cycling routes, save and share them, choose a theme and units of measurement. Cycling GPS Location Tracker is your indispensable assistant for tracking routes when running, walking and cycling. The application allows you not only to record your movement in kilometers or miles, but also to save up to 1000 routes in an archive for subsequent analysis and share them with friends or a coach. You can choose an eye-friendly display mode: light or dark theme. This is the ideal tool for those who want to improve their results and share their successes.

Version 11.11.11

functionality updated

App Privacy

The developer, Oksana Nikita , indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .

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The developer does not collect any data from this app.

Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More

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