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DQ Family Travel
plan.travel.repeat
MY FAVORITE FREE TRAVEL PLANNING APPS
1. Roadtrippers
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This app is essential when trip planning. You enter your start and ending destination and then you can select from sub topics on things to do along your route. Options include: points of interest, outdoors, camping & RV, food, amusement and nightlife, and more. I love how it shows unique finds along the way, and you can even filter it based on your interests. You can also view your trip in a map format (my preference) or a listed one. I like to use this app to visualize the map and see what other cities are nearby, and then adjust accordingly. Another great feature, is that the app shows you how many miles you will drive and the estimated cost of gas for the road trip. There is a web version too!
2. TripAdvisor
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This is my "go to" activities app. While Roadtrippers helps me visualize the trip from Point A to Point B, and find some neat stops along the way, TripAdvisor lets me see if the city or place is worth the stop. I use TripAdvisor's "Things to do" category for every trip we travel on. You can even break down activities into: outdoors, museums, sights and landmarks and more. Just by looking at the top 5 things to do in that city, I can tell if it is worth a family visit. I also use the reviews left by other users to make my own decision as well.
3. Google Maps
I use this app all the time when travel planning. Visually, it helps me see the drive time between cities in terms of traffic. It is also helpful for finding restaurants and gas stops along the way. I also use it as my GPS app while we are on the trip to get from Point A to Point B, and use it if we are walking in the city (since it has a walk feature).
4. Yelp
Eating at great restaurants is a very important part of any vacation (for us anyway). Yelp is the app I use to find the best restaurants in the cities we travel to. We aren't the "fancy, expensive" restaurant kind of family. We prefer more of the "casual, good vibe" kind of place. Ideally, we like places that have a kids menu, craft drinks, and just good food! Yelp helps us find restaurants in the specific part of the city we will be in and can be filtered by the type of cuisine you are in the mood for.
5. Trip It
This is a great app to manage all of the activities on your trip. Once you install the app, it pulls from your email and organizes all of your purchases (airfare, car rental, museum tickets, etc...). This app is a nice way to organize all of your information and see everything in one spot.
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