How to easily plan a trip with Google services
Planning a trip can be a painstaking experience. You must find suitable dates, pick the right destination, find accommodations, book flights, compare prices, and look for things to do. Google has a range of services to help you organize your next trip, whether it’s for a business meeting or a group vacation. Some of them are designed to make it easier to include other people in your plans, and most are accessible from a web browser or an Android device, even themost affordable Android phones.
Here are the Google apps we use and some of our top tips to help you plan your next vacation.
Google Calendar
Before planning a trip, it’s best to identify suitable dates. Google Calendar can make this easier by helping you see people’s availabilities, provided they’ve shared their calendars with you.
What’s even better is that Google parses travel confirmation emails and adds the details to your calendar. You don’t need to add flight, hotel, and car rental information. Other reservations, such as visits and restaurant bookings, are also easy to add directly from Gmail. You just click to add it.
Google Travel Explore
Now that you’ve found dates that suit everyone, Google can help you find location inspiration.Google Travel Exploreis an underrated feature that lets you browse destinations on a map and use filters to narrow down your options. Select various travel interests from the filters, and Explore helps you choose the perfect spot.
It’s a neat way to get recommendations, but filter options are limited. We would love to see additional filters for kid-friendly and pet-friendly places.
Google Travel Hotels and Vacation Rentals
When booking a trip, it’s essential to figure out where you’ll stay. Google can help you find thebest hotels and vacation rentals. It searches through third-party sites such as Agoda, Expedia, Booking.com, and Hotels.com to find the best rates.
It’s even more convenient for vacation rentals as it looks through sites you may not be familiar with and won’t limit itself to VBRO and Airbnb. For instance, if you’re looking for rentals at a French ski resort, Google Travel may pull options from sites like Bluepillow, BookingPal, HolidayLettings, and other sites you wouldn’t have considered. Google Travel is more helpful than other options because it analyzes ratings and popular nearby locations to find the best spots.
Similarly, Google Travel can calculate the best times to visit and what to expect in terms of prices according to the hotel category. Recommendations are based on data such as prices, weather, and occupancy rates. It’s an excellent way to get to know your destination better and narrow your choices to find the best available options.
Google also provides filters to refine your searches, such as hotel category, type, brand, price, amenities, guest ratings, brands, cancelation options, and the number of rooms for vacation rentals. However, there is no way to set a price alert like with Google Flights, but there’s a neat option to save hotels or vacation rentals to a list and compare them.
Things to do in Google Maps and Travel
Whether you accessthe Things to do servicefrom Google Travel or Google Maps, it’s a great way to find interesting attractions. Google Travel presents you with the top sights. You can dig deeper and browse through narrower categories, such as historical places, arts and culture attractions, museums, outdoor features, amusement parks, and pet-friendly places. Google also recommends travel articles from various sites, offering several opinions about a place.
Also, since Google’s services work together, you’re able to add places to a list and see them later in Google Maps. In contrast to other services like Yelp, you get the benefit of seeing everything in one spot, and places are easier to find once you’re there. Also, as users and local guides can review places in Maps, there’s no reason to open a different app to find recommendations.
Google Flights
If your trip involves flying,Google Flightsis the best service to look for options. It asks you to enter any destination, then routes you to the closest airports.
Google Flights offers various filters to find the perfect flight. Cabin preference, flight time, price range, and bag allowance are a few of the filter options. Frequent flier members can also filter by airline alliance.
Google Flights also allows you to set a price alert and notifies you if there’s a price drop or hike on a particular route.
Google Travel
In addition to saving your trip information in Calendar,Google Travelsaves your bookings in an organized way. It’s convenient when you plan to visit multiple cities as it calculates travel times between your hotel and the airport.
Since Google Travel is a progressive web app, you’ll need an internet connection to use it.
With Translate, language doesn’t need to be a barrier when traveling abroad. Withsupport for over 100 languages, Google can help you communicate with people in many parts of the world.
Make sure you download languages locally before your trip. That way, you’re able to communicate with people without an internet connection. We particularly like the Live Translate feature, which is handy when having a conversation with someone who doesn’t speak the same language.
Also, when trying to figure out what’s on a menu, it’s possible to use the Instant Camera feature. This feature allows you to point your camera at written text and watch as it’s translated into the language of your choice.
Google Maps
Google Maps may be the app you’ll use the most when traveling. It provides online andoffline guidance, recommends places to eat or drink, lets you chat with local businesses, and helps you book a table on Reserve with Google.
Android Auto
Becoming familiar with the dash menus, headlights, windshield wipers, and radio can be a hassle when renting a car. Android Auto is a familiar interface that makes it easier to get to your destination. It lets you locate all the places you’ve saved in Google Maps and provides directions to your hotel.
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