Google Trips Review

September 05, 2017 by Aaron Ong

Today, I will be reviewing Google Trips, an application that helps you to manage your reservations and plan your trip.

A Travel Diary you don't have to write

When I opened the application for the first time, I was taken aback by how much information was already in it. Without needing to configure a single thing, I could view my vacation timeline over the last three years in detail. Google Trips gathers all of the reservations made on your Google account, organises them, and displays them in Trips. I never kept a travel diary but I know i have one now.

A User Interface you don't have to struggle with

Apart from the convenience offered, the application is beautiful and feels extremely familiar. After navigating the application for five minutes, I felt like I was right at home. Design principles from Google maps, and other of Google's services featured heavily in Google Trips, contributing to its familiarity and ease of use.

A Trip you don't have to plan

I don't know about you but I absolutely dislike planning my trips. It is a hassle and extremely inconvenient. Google Trips takes the pain out of the planning. The day plans feature allows you to generate day plans in one click. You can even customize your own day plans at ease because the feature highlights all the places of interest around your accommodation and allows you to string them together into a single day plan. In monday's presentation, Group 7 mentioned that the day plans feature has an clunky UX. While I definitely felt the same way when I first used the feature, the learning curve was not steep and it felt easy to use after I planned a couple of day plans.

A List of Activities you don't have to categorize

"Food & Drink" and "Things to do" are by far my favourite features in the app. Not only do they offer great suggestions, the suggestions are all categorized into convenient categories. I no longer have to scan through a list of great restaurants only to find out that they are far too expensive for my wallet.

A Trip that you can download

Alright. I lied. My favourite feature is actually the ability to download EVERYTHING related to the trip onto your phone for offline access. THIS IS YUGEEEE. The download feature does not just include your travel reservations. It includes a long list of things to do, food to eat, your day plans, an offline map, and all essential tourist information for the location (including emergency contacts).

A Travel Planner that you can use when you are not traveling

Last but not least, it is a travel planner that you can use even when you are not travelling. With all of Google Trip's offerings I decided to save Singapore as a trip and download Singapore on the application. Even as a local, I am learning more about Singapore as I use the app.

All in all, Google Trips brings the best of Google Maps, Gmail, and Google search together into making a one stop solution for planning and managing your trips.

But the application is already treading a fine line between being a one-stop travel companion and being a bloated application, so Google might want to reconsider before adding more features into it.

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