Wanderlog vs TripIt vs Google Travel
Trip planning apps split into two camps: apps that help you plan (Wanderlog) and apps that organize what you've already booked (TripIt, Google Travel). Here's which you actually need.
Trip planning apps fall into two distinct categories that most reviews blur together. Planning apps (Wanderlog) help you build an itinerary before you book anything — dragging attractions onto a map, collaborating with travel companions, seeing everything laid out by day. Organization apps (TripIt, Google Travel) import your confirmation emails and create a single trip view of what you’ve already booked. Understanding which problem you have determines which app you need.
At a glance
| Wanderlog | TripIt Pro | Google Travel | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free / $3-4/mo premium | $49/yr | Free |
| Primary use case | Trip planning + itinerary building | Organizing confirmed bookings | Passive booking tracking |
| Email import | Manual | Automatic (Gmail / Outlook) | Automatic (Gmail only) |
| Collaborative planning | Excellent (real-time) | No | No |
| Map-based itinerary | Excellent | No | Basic |
| Flight/hotel alerts | No | Yes (Pro) — delays, gate changes | Basic |
| Offline access | Yes (paid) | Yes (app) | Yes (limited) |
| Expense tracking | Yes | No | No |
| Best for | Leisure travel + groups | Frequent business travelers | Casual travelers + Gmail users |
Wanderlog — the collaborative trip planner
Wanderlog is the best trip-planning app for the phase before you book anything — building an itinerary, saving places you want to visit, organizing days, and coordinating with travel partners. You pull in saved places from Google Maps, Instagram, or manual search, drag them onto a day-by-day timeline, and see everything plotted on a map. Multiple people can edit the same trip simultaneously.
- Map-first design: every attraction, restaurant, and hotel is plotted on the map with its day color-coded. You can see immediately if you’ve planned things in a geographically illogical order (Museum in the morning on Day 3, restaurant that’s two neighborhoods away for lunch).
- Collaboration: invite travel partners by link. Everyone can add and rearrange items. One person can be the primary planner and share for viewing only. Works well for group trips where different people are researching different days.
- Free tier is genuinely generous: unlimited trips, unlimited collaborators, map view, basic offline. The paid tier (~$3.50/mo) adds offline maps for the whole itinerary, flight and hotel search within the app, and a few other features. Most leisure travelers don’t need the paid tier.
- Weakness: not an email-import tool. You don’t forward your confirmation emails to Wanderlog and get an automatic trip organized — you build the itinerary yourself. That’s the point of Wanderlog (planning), but if you want the organized-bookings view, you’ll use something else alongside it.
TripIt (and TripIt Pro) — the booking organizer
TripIt solves a different problem: you’ve got 12 confirmation emails from the airline, hotel, car rental, and three restaurant reservations, and you want them all in one place. Forward the emails to plans@tripit.com or grant TripIt access to your Gmail, and it parses everything into a single trip timeline automatically.
- TripIt free: the email-parsing and trip timeline features. Good enough for leisure travelers who just want consolidated bookings.
- TripIt Pro ($49/yr): adds real-time flight alerts (gate changes, delays, cancellations — pushed to your phone before the airline app notifies you), seat tracker (tells you when better seats open up on your flight), and baggage claim information. Business travelers who fly frequently get real value from Pro.
- Weakness: no trip planning features. TripIt doesn’t help you figure out what to do — it organizes what you’ve decided to do. Not collaborative. The interface looks dated compared to Wanderlog.
- Concur integration: TripIt Pro integrates with corporate travel and expense systems. This is the reason most business travelers end up on TripIt — their company expense platform connects to it.
Google Travel — the zero-friction option
If you book through Gmail — most people do — Google Travel automatically organizes your trips without any setup. Visit travel.google.com and your upcoming flights, hotels, and car rentals are already there, parsed from Gmail. There’s no sign-up, no app to configure, no email forwarding. It just works.
- Why it’s underrated: most people don’t know travel.google.com exists. If you use Gmail, you already have a basic trip organizer — check it before paying for TripIt.
- Limitations vs TripIt Pro: no real-time flight alerts, no seat tracking, no Pro-tier features. The trip view is more basic. For frequent flyers, TripIt Pro earns its $49/yr. For occasional travelers, Google Travel may be all you need.
- Privacy consideration: Google is reading your email to power this. That’s the tradeoff. It’s the same data Google has access to regardless — this just surfaces it usefully. But it’s worth being aware of.
Feature comparison
| Wanderlog | TripIt Pro | Google Travel | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Build itinerary before booking | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Auto-import confirmation emails | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Real-time flight delay alerts | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Map view of itinerary | ✓ | ✗ | basic |
| Collaborative editing | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Restaurant + attraction recommendations | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Budget / expense tracking | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Works without Gmail | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Free tier available | ✓ | limited | ✓ |
Who should pick which
The takeaway
If you’re planning a vacation: Wanderlog free. Share it with your travel partners, drag things onto the map, build the trip the way you want.
If you’re a frequent business traveler: check Google Travel first (free, probably already working). If you want flight alerts and seat tracking: TripIt Pro at $49/yr pays for itself the first time it reroutes you before the airline app does.