My Favorite Travel Apps
Planning a great trip takes more than just a good itinerary — it takes the right tools. Over years of travel, I’ve settled on a handful of apps and websites that I genuinely rely on, from the early research phase all the way through to navigating a trail in real time. Here’s what’s always on my phone (and my browser) when I’m planning a trip.
Wanderlog
The all-in-one trip planner I use for every trip
Wanderlog is my single most-used travel planning tool, and I use it on both mobile and desktop. It lets you build out a detailed daily itinerary, add receipts for budgeting, and store reservations all in one place — which means everything related to a trip lives in one organized view rather than scattered across a dozen different tabs and emails.
To start, I use a Google Doc to dump all my ideas about how I want the trip to go, including research for museums, restaurants and a proposed date range for the trip. Then, once I’ve started booking things and finalized the activities I want to do, I transfer that into Wanderlog and that’s what I actually use during my travels each day. It’s much easier when you’re on the go since with Wanderlog, everything is in one place.
Why I love it
The budgeting features alone make Wanderlog worth using — you can log expenses and even split trip costs with a detailed breakdown directly in the app, which is incredibly useful when you’re traveling with others and want to keep things fair without the mental math or awkwardness of tracking who owes what.
I use the Pro version, which I find well worth the money if you travel regularly. One of its standout features at that tier is the ability to connect the app to your email so it can automatically pull in reservations from your inbox. It’s a small thing that saves a surprising amount of time.
One habit I’ve built around Wanderlog: whenever I have a trip coming up, I share the itinerary with family so they know where we are each day. Mostly it’s just a safety measure, but it also helps keep everyone in the loop without having to send separate messages. If you’re traveling solo or to somewhere unfamiliar, I’d strongly recommend making this a habit.
AllTrails
My go-to for hiking trips
For any trip where hiking is on the agenda, AllTrails is indispensable. The app lets you search trails by difficulty, distance, elevation, and user ratings, so you can find something well-matched to your fitness level and goals. You can also track which trails you’ve already completed and save others to a wish list — which, for those of us who think of hiking as a long-term hobby rather than just a vacation activity, is a genuinely useful feature.
A few things worth knowing
The ability to download maps in advance is one of the features I rely on most. If you know you’re heading somewhere with limited phone service — a national park, a remote stretch of coastline, a mountain trail — downloading the route before you go takes away a major source of anxiety. I’ve used it in Bergen, Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Portugal, and beyond, and it’s never let me down.
When I know a big hiking year is ahead of me, I upgrade to the paid version for the added perks. Whether the free version is enough for you really depends on how often you’re out on trails, but either way, the app is worth having on your phone.
Viator
Where I book tours
Viator is the site I turn to most often when I’m looking to book a guided experience — and I’ve used it all over the world, from fjord cruises in Bergen to kayaking tours and day excursions in Portugal. Knock on wood, I’ve consistently had really good experiences with every tour I’ve booked through Viator.
Why I use it over booking directly most of the time
A few reasons. First, paying through the Viator platform adds a layer of protection for your payment information compared to booking through smaller local operators’ websites. Second, the review system is robust and genuinely useful — you can read a lot of first-hand experiences before committing, which helps you gauge whether a tour is the right fit. Third, you can compare similar tours side by side on price and format, which makes it easier to make a confident decision rather than just going with the first result you find. If you’re someone who books a lot of experiences while traveling, Viator is worth bookmarking.
TripAdvisor
A useful second opinion
I don’t typically book through TripAdvisor, and I’d say its reviews are a bit less consistent than Viator’s when it comes to tours specifically. That said, it’s still a resource I turn to regularly when I’m doing my research — particularly for restaurants and hotels I’m considering. It has a massive volume of reviews across pretty much every destination imaginable, and cross-referencing it against other sources is a good way to do your due diligence before committing to a reservation.
Duolingo
Learn the basics before you go
Traveling to a country where you don’t speak the language? Duolingo is worth downloading well before your departure date. I used it to study Portuguese ahead of our honeymoon trip through Portugal, and French for other travels — and while I’m nowhere close to fluent in either, I came away with enough essential words and phrases to be genuinely useful on the ground. Reading a menu, deciphering street signs, following along with museum information, and exchanging basic pleasantries with locals are all made meaningfully easier when you’ve put in even a modest amount of study time beforehand.
A note on the free vs. paid version
I did use the upgraded version for a year and found it to be excellent — the learning experience is smooth, well-structured, and genuinely engaging. My honest complaint is about the free version: the ads are extremely, relentlessly annoying. To a degree that feels very intentional. I suspect that’s part of how they motivate people to upgrade, and I’ll admit, it works. If you’re serious about learning ahead of a trip, the paid version is the better experience. Whether it’s worth the cost depends on how much you’ll use it — but if you’re planning a trip to a country with an unfamiliar language, starting with the free version to see if it sticks is a perfectly reasonable first step.
Staying Connected Abroad
The communication tool I use on every international trip
This might sound like a no-brainer to some, but if you don’t already have WhatsApp on your phone, download it before your next international trip. While I do use an eSIM for data abroad, WhatsApp is almost exclusively how I communicate with vendors, hotels, and service providers when I’m traveling internationally — and the difference it makes is hard to overstate.
How I use it on the road
During our elopement, WhatsApp was the backbone of our entire vendor communication — our florist, photographer, videographer, celebrant, driver, elopement planner, and even the artist I hired to press my bouquet were all coordinated through the app. It kept everything in one place and made the logistics of planning a wedding abroad genuinely manageable.
Several of the five-star hotels we stayed at also used WhatsApp as their primary guest communication channel, which I absolutely loved. Being able to text the hotel to have a bottle of wine sent to the room, make a dinner reservation, or schedule activities at the resort is so much more convenient than calling the front desk — and I say that as a true millennial who will do almost anything to avoid making a phone call. If you can handle it via email, chat, or text, that is always my preference, and WhatsApp makes that possible almost everywhere in the world.
eSIM App Options
Data without the roaming fees
For staying connected internationally without paying steep roaming charges, I’ve used Ubigi as my eSIM provider. It has a convenient app for tracking your data usage in real time, it’s very inexpensive, and it has done the job reliably across multiple trips. That said, I’ll be straightforward: it gets the job done, but you can probably find better options out there if you do a bit of research before your trip.I’m not married to Ubigi and may experiment with other options.
My husband uses Verizon’s international plan, which he’s been happy with — though it’s significantly more expensive than an eSIM like Ubigi. If budget is a priority and you’re comfortable doing a little setup in advance, an eSIM is a smart way to go. Ubigi has been my reliable, no-fuss option for budget-conscious travel, and I’ve had no issues with it across several international trips.
The right app won’t make a bad trip good, but it can absolutely make a good trip better. The tools above have earned their place in my regular rotation because they’ve proven themselves across enough trips and enough destinations that I now reach for them automatically. Whether you’re planning a weekend hike or a multi-week international adventure, I hope a few of these make their way onto your phone too.
