While this app obviously has a few incredibly useful-looking features, am I the only one who feels travel is best done <i>talking with locals</i>? Asking your hotel manager for recommendations - THAT'S how to travel well. See a slice of pizza that looks good? Go ASK the guy where he got it. Do we really believe we can Google/Yelp our way to a genuinely local experience? Or do we think that local experiences start with local people? Is this just another app that helps us stare at our phones while traveling, instead of searching for real culture through real connection?<p>That said, I already offline Google Maps before any trip, and this app will probably make it easier, so I'll use it. But I'll always place way more weight on a local recommendation than anything else.
I hope they'll make a desktop web version of this app, because planning everything (what you want to see, where you want to eat, etc.) on a small screen is tedious.<p>For all my previous trips I have used Google My Maps [0], which is good but not great: on mobile, the places you added to your layers don't contain any Google Maps information, such as opening hours, and you even need to have data to get the name of a place you saved.<p>However, what's great with My Maps compared to Trips, in addition to the fact that there is a desktop web app, is that thanks to layers you can color-code the places you add to your map, so for example make all the museums pins purple, the restaurants pins blue, etc.<p>[0]: <a href="https://www.google.com/mymaps/" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/mymaps/</a>
You can't have a travel guide without an editorial voice. There's a huge gap in travel for tooling, and this is a really good addition, but that's not enough by itself. Lonely Planet et al haven't changed meaningfully <i>since the internet was invented</i>, but compare the amount of time people spend looking at a travel guide vs anything with advertising on it. The Priceline Group spent over 5B in 2015 marketing while all of Lonely Planet is worth maybe 250M. Build the next generation guide and you'll capture the booking market with it. And Google will never compete with you for the same reason Facebook got smacked around when they used human news editors.<p>It's crazy winner takes all. That's why it's a battle Google wants to fight:<p>72B: Priceline Group<p>15B: Expedia<p>7B: Trip Advisor<p>1B Orbitz<p>176M Travel Zoo
I've been using Tripit for years to keep track of my travel plans. Then I use TripAdvisor for figuring out what to do in places I"m visiting. Not seeing anything really interesting here, other than it being in one place. But judging by Google Reviews on maps which are significantly worse than Yelp reviews, I doubt their travel advice will be remotely close to TripAdvisors'.
The trips feature in Inbox is incredibly useful, but I hated having to go back to the email app and scrolling till I find the trip details. So I'm glad they came up with a new app to manage your trips.
I'm using it right now, and it looks like I can't share the details of my next trip with my trip mates. This is kind of a deal breaker. Anyone has the same issue?<p>I love the idea though, picking a 48 hours list from someone. I wanted to do a website like that years ago, called 48hoursInaCity.com or something, where you could upvote a 48hours tour of the city and choose the one you wanted.<p>Okay, second issue: I can't add a reservation myself. For some reason I received my plane tickets email on a different email than gmail and... I can't have them in the app now :(<p>Third issue: right now it just feels a bit gimmicky, I tried browsing places and it is nothing compared to Trip Advisor.
I've been using TripCase[1] and just gave this a try. It picked up my flight information, but not my hotel or GroundLink confirmation emails. All of those emails were in my gmail account. In the case of TripCase, I have to forward all of my confirmation/booking emails to trips@tripcase.com to add it to my trip on the app.<p>[1] <a href="http://travel.tripcase.com/" rel="nofollow">http://travel.tripcase.com/</a>
Gogobot Senior Engineer here...<p>This looks a little bit familiar<p><a href="http://venturebeat.com/2016/06/14/gogobot-ai-travel-planning/" rel="nofollow">http://venturebeat.com/2016/06/14/gogobot-ai-travel-planning...</a><p>I've built this product here @ Gogobot and I am super proud of it. Not sure if I'm flattered or angry yet. :)
No Wifi, No Data, Taxi took you for a "ride", Goats in the street, Grumpy hotel manager, Flamenco music ...Yes!! This is definitely Barcelona, Spain!! ;-)<p>C'mon Google!
So far I am very impressed with their collection of places to see (groupings too!), and their ability to guess how long you might go to each location.<p>The app isn't perfect, but these features alone are worth adding to the collection of travel apps for sure.
It's not a killer travel app at all, sorry. As of now I wouldn't trade having some Wikitravel pages offline for this Google Trips app. Let's wait and see before calling it a "killer travel app", shall we?
It's completely broken for me as of now. Does not pick up any of my travel mails, I can't create a trip, and it does not show any places for cities that I manually enter...
Trello is an amazing tool for vacation planning. I like to have each column be a day in the itinerary, with cards for each event or mode of transportation. The app lets you download boards offline, so you can store relevant reservation info under each card.
this solves only 1 part of the problem. at least based on the video, it seems like you'd need to have the hotel and places pre-selected. that's not how it usually works for me. I find having to plan a trip with all the restaurants/hotels/bars to visit beforehand incredibly painful so prefer to just choose the major cities/towns, and explore them after getting there. I also prefer the advice of locals vs tourists that visited and left reviews (because then you get stuck in most touristy places).<p>This approach requires research in wifi zones and talking to locals.<p>i think a better problem to solve would be actual suggestions that don't suck. perhaps crowd sourced from reputable users. and get all that pre-cached!
Going to try this out, but like a commentator on the Verge already mentioned, they should really have released it or beta-tested earlier-mid year since a lot of people backpack / travel during the summer.
Sounds totally like a promotional piece.<p>Count "It's recommended that you check opening hours before visiting." That's how you do UX these days?<p>Anyway, I'm pretty happy with skyscanner, maps.me, tripadvisor and booking (they have crappy UI tho, check alternatives in countries where they're viable).
A "Travel app" that shows so many clichés condensed in its presentation video (and to top it all, a goat in a spanish street?) hints of enormous amounts of ignorance about the destination. And even feels <i>insulting</i>...<p>I'll stick to my carrier with free voice and data roaming in UK-EU-US for reading TripAdvisor/Yelp reviews... and a normal GPS Navigator for moving around.<p>Also, maybe Google has missed the minor detail that in 2020 Europe will provide free wifi and 4G in all european major urban areas, and free 5G in 2025 covering all the EU... [0]<p>So yes, european visitors and local goats will have free connectivity in less than 4 years... Another GooglePlus-like project to the trash can, Google.<p>[0] <a href="http://phys.org/news/2016-09-eu-aims-deploy-5g-technology.html" rel="nofollow">http://phys.org/news/2016-09-eu-aims-deploy-5g-technology.ht...</a><p>/rant