To plan a tourist trip you always rely on the guides found on the internet, to find reviews on commercial places, comments on hotels and restaurants, explanations and guides on museums and monuments. To bring order to everything there is to see in a city to visit, there are many applications capable of creating a complete travel planning in order to have your own and personal roadmap, dividing commitments and fun during the days, trying to optimize the time available. Thanks to the apps, it becomes much easier to identify the places to see and plan itineraries than you would with the map in hand, trying to identify monuments and tourist attractions close to each other so as not to get lost and not waste energy and money on long journeys .
Even more easily, you can let your travel itinerary decide with an application that does everything automatically, which, based on your personal needs, traces an ideal route to follow .
The most important functions that become useful during each trip in Italy and abroad are the following:
- Download the maps of Google Maps, so you can always have the city map at hand, even without an internet connection. The map allows you to search for attractions, hotels or anything else and also to set the navigator on foot or by car, to get to your destination as soon as possible.
- Saving your favorite places to visit first is the first rule of any travel planning and this can be done in Google Maps very easily, touching the point to open the information sheet and marking it with a star. In the main menu you can then go to the "Your places" section to find all the stages marked and create an ideal itinerary. You can also create a list of favorite places, from the "Saved" section, using the + icon in the saved items section (your places).
- Share the list of places to visit with the travel group .
From the section of your places on Google Maps it is possible not only to add places to save in different lists, but also to share these lists. Those who receive the sharing can vote on the proposed stages so that they can give a direct opinion and therefore form the best itinerary together with the others.
- Exploring the area displayed in Google Maps allows you to check nearby restaurants and also read reviews and opinions.
Google Maps shows in this section the recommended nearby points of interest based on time and time.
The Explore page takes into account both the places we have already been to and what is suggested by the experts. If the Google Maps restaurant suggestions are not satisfactory, you can try changing your preferences in the Settings> Explore places menu, to choose your preferences for food and drinks. Note that even when browsing, you can always check the places to eat. If we are in the car and we are guided by the Google navigator, pull up the bottom row that shows the estimated remaining time and touch the Search button to be able to be directed to an intermediate destination, without losing the original destination.
- History
The automatic history of Google Maps becomes an excellent travel diary that stores the stages visited. In the history you can write notes for each day and preview the photos taken in that place. The history is available in the left navigation pane of Google Maps.
- Hear music while browsing
You can listen to music directly from Google Maps using integrations with Google Play Music or Spotify, as explained some time ago in the linked article. To activate the music controls, you have to go to Settings -> Navigation settings .
READ ALSO: App to organize Travel and Holidays
By combining the various information and aggregating it appropriately, Google is able to recommend the best place to go at a certain time of the year, also based on the amount you want to spend. The Google Destinations service is active from PC and smartphone, searching on Google for the country or continent where you would like to go with the word " destinations ": for example: Europe destinations . Destination searches also work with more precise words, for example to find excursions in France, skiing in Italy or beaches in Spain . The result of this research will give us a list of cities indicating the reasons for visiting it, for example for museums or concerts, the price of the cheapest flight and a hotel room. Then expand your destinations to see a long list of suggested cities and places. By tapping on one of the suggested places you can see a description card, the best places to visit, the climate in the selected period of the year. From here you can also access the card to plan a trip to that city . In planning you can touch the pencil icon to choose how many nights you want to stay, the dates, how many people and in which hotel category to sleep.
First of all you choose the destination of the trip by choosing one of the proposed cities such as, for example, London, Barcelona, Rome, New York, Dublin, Paris, Prague, Toronto, San Francisco, Washington. The next step is the selection of the travel period, then the reason for the trip (with children, by culture, to see the best places (ideal if it's the first time), trips outside the city) and the goal (Rest only, tourism medium, extreme tourism to see as many things as possible)
Eventually you set a level of spending that you are willing to bear. The end result is a map of the city with all the itineraries outlined for each day of stay . An average itinerary includes a departure at 8.30 and a return to the hotel at 20.
The hotel selected is the one that Tripit recommends for that type of stay and the level of expenditure chosen, but it is also possible to change it so as to start the visit from the hotel that may have already been booked. Once the itinerary has been generated, it is possible to optimize it by changing the tourist destinations you intend to visit, adding or excluding some points. During the day, the means of transport to be taken are also indicated, whether to go on foot and how long it should take to walk a road.
Scout is a website that allows you to plan trips and guided tours by combining Google Maps and Google sheets. In guided mode you can then search for itineraries and automatically insert them in a table to create an itinerary quickly.
In addition, in this post we also mention the City-Discovery.it site where you can book guided tours, activities and excursions online in any city in the world.
Another convenient site for planning trips and group sightseeing is Travelchime, where those who participate in the organization of the trip can add places, restaurants and notes that are shared with others.
Organized itineraries can then be exported to Google Maps, to have them ready in the app and receive all the driving directions.
READ ALSO: Best travel sites with tips, photos and guides to organize your holidays
Even more easily, you can let your travel itinerary decide with an application that does everything automatically, which, based on your personal needs, traces an ideal route to follow .
Google Maps
The main app that must never be missing on every trip is, of course, Google Maps, available for Android and for iPhone.The most important functions that become useful during each trip in Italy and abroad are the following:
- Download the maps of Google Maps, so you can always have the city map at hand, even without an internet connection. The map allows you to search for attractions, hotels or anything else and also to set the navigator on foot or by car, to get to your destination as soon as possible.
- Saving your favorite places to visit first is the first rule of any travel planning and this can be done in Google Maps very easily, touching the point to open the information sheet and marking it with a star. In the main menu you can then go to the "Your places" section to find all the stages marked and create an ideal itinerary. You can also create a list of favorite places, from the "Saved" section, using the + icon in the saved items section (your places).
- Share the list of places to visit with the travel group .
From the section of your places on Google Maps it is possible not only to add places to save in different lists, but also to share these lists. Those who receive the sharing can vote on the proposed stages so that they can give a direct opinion and therefore form the best itinerary together with the others.
- Exploring the area displayed in Google Maps allows you to check nearby restaurants and also read reviews and opinions.
Google Maps shows in this section the recommended nearby points of interest based on time and time.
The Explore page takes into account both the places we have already been to and what is suggested by the experts. If the Google Maps restaurant suggestions are not satisfactory, you can try changing your preferences in the Settings> Explore places menu, to choose your preferences for food and drinks. Note that even when browsing, you can always check the places to eat. If we are in the car and we are guided by the Google navigator, pull up the bottom row that shows the estimated remaining time and touch the Search button to be able to be directed to an intermediate destination, without losing the original destination.
- History
The automatic history of Google Maps becomes an excellent travel diary that stores the stages visited. In the history you can write notes for each day and preview the photos taken in that place. The history is available in the left navigation pane of Google Maps.
- Hear music while browsing
You can listen to music directly from Google Maps using integrations with Google Play Music or Spotify, as explained some time ago in the linked article. To activate the music controls, you have to go to Settings -> Navigation settings .
READ ALSO: App to organize Travel and Holidays
Google Travel
The Google Travel site (formerly Google Destinations) is the perfect synthesis of all the Google tools dedicated to travel, therefore the Find Hotel, the Find Flights and the function to explore new places and find things to see. For each destination you can therefore see the best places to visit, find recommended or planned itineraries, see general information on places such as temperatures and popularity for each month and then also search for flights and hotels to book.By combining the various information and aggregating it appropriately, Google is able to recommend the best place to go at a certain time of the year, also based on the amount you want to spend. The Google Destinations service is active from PC and smartphone, searching on Google for the country or continent where you would like to go with the word " destinations ": for example: Europe destinations . Destination searches also work with more precise words, for example to find excursions in France, skiing in Italy or beaches in Spain . The result of this research will give us a list of cities indicating the reasons for visiting it, for example for museums or concerts, the price of the cheapest flight and a hotel room. Then expand your destinations to see a long list of suggested cities and places. By tapping on one of the suggested places you can see a description card, the best places to visit, the climate in the selected period of the year. From here you can also access the card to plan a trip to that city . In planning you can touch the pencil icon to choose how many nights you want to stay, the dates, how many people and in which hotel category to sleep.
TripIt
A very good site to consult before each trip, which is also one of the best apps for traveling, is Tripit, perfect for planning itineraries and holidays.First of all you choose the destination of the trip by choosing one of the proposed cities such as, for example, London, Barcelona, Rome, New York, Dublin, Paris, Prague, Toronto, San Francisco, Washington. The next step is the selection of the travel period, then the reason for the trip (with children, by culture, to see the best places (ideal if it's the first time), trips outside the city) and the goal (Rest only, tourism medium, extreme tourism to see as many things as possible)
Eventually you set a level of spending that you are willing to bear. The end result is a map of the city with all the itineraries outlined for each day of stay . An average itinerary includes a departure at 8.30 and a return to the hotel at 20.
The hotel selected is the one that Tripit recommends for that type of stay and the level of expenditure chosen, but it is also possible to change it so as to start the visit from the hotel that may have already been booked. Once the itinerary has been generated, it is possible to optimize it by changing the tourist destinations you intend to visit, adding or excluding some points. During the day, the means of transport to be taken are also indicated, whether to go on foot and how long it should take to walk a road.
Other sites and applications
Sygic Travel, a free app for Android and iPhone is an alternative to the disappearing Google Trips app, which allows you to plan itineraries and guided tours in every city in the world, to find museums and attractions on the map and estimate the time of each day as a tourist.Scout is a website that allows you to plan trips and guided tours by combining Google Maps and Google sheets. In guided mode you can then search for itineraries and automatically insert them in a table to create an itinerary quickly.
In addition, in this post we also mention the City-Discovery.it site where you can book guided tours, activities and excursions online in any city in the world.
Another convenient site for planning trips and group sightseeing is Travelchime, where those who participate in the organization of the trip can add places, restaurants and notes that are shared with others.
Organized itineraries can then be exported to Google Maps, to have them ready in the app and receive all the driving directions.
READ ALSO: Best travel sites with tips, photos and guides to organize your holidays
