Trip Planning Sites (August 20, 2008)

Another popular question of late has been, "since TripHub will no longer be available, can you point me to another online trip planning site?"

Again, there is no single, simple answer. What kind of trip? How many people? Do you know when and where you're going or are you looking for ideas? How complicated is your itinerary and will everyone be traveling together? Do you want to keep your plans private or share them with the world?

There are many online travel planning sites. Some new, some well-established. Each is different and each has its own strengths. There's also a host of collaboration and organizational tools that, while not specifically travel oriented, offer rich functionality.

So, with that caveat, here are some sites you may find helpful:

evite - While there are many upstarts competing for this business (MyPunchbowl et al.), evite remains the granddaddy of online invitation sites. It's not perfect, but it works and everyone knows how to use it.

Google Sites - Create a custom Web site for your group or event. Shared discussions, calendars, pictures, documents, privacy settings, etc. Or you might try a wiki or group organization site like WetPaint and Backpackit.

Groople - Group reservations and planning tools including room lists and payment collection from individual group members. Some suppliers such as Carnival Cruise Lines also offer online group reservation and planning tools for their customers.

TripIt - Organizes trip itineraries (flights, hotels and activities booked from leading online agency and supplier sites) and creates a private Web page with maps, weather, etc. that you can share with friends and family. Other sites (TravelMuse et al.) allow you and your group to clip, organize and share content and sites you find on the Web.

WeddingChannel - Offers free and fee based sites for organizing your wedding where you can communicate event details, collect RSVPs, recommend hotels, share photos, etc. Similarly MyFamily.com offers free and fee based family sites that may be useful for organizing reunions and vacations with extended family.

Yahoo Trip Planner - Explore and copy other people's trips/itineraries and create your own custom travel guide with hotels, activities, restaurants, maps, etc. that you can share with your group (requires Yahoo IDs) or the world. There are several other sites (TripWiser et al.) that allow you to build your own itineraries and remix those of others.

Clearly this isn't a comprehensive list. Feel free to add a comment and share your reviews and recommendations.

Comments

[lukas Zinnagl]

hey guys,

sorry to see the site shut down all the best for the future. i just wanted to complete the above list by mentioning our start up

http://www.tripwolf.com

where you can create your own pdf trip guides. all the best
lukas

[TomSieron]

You can also check out http://mapness.net. Mapness is a map focused travel journal and a travel planner. I'm one of the co-founders.

Mapness offers personalized and structured map-based travel journals tracing entire journeys step by step with pin-point accuracy and rich multimedia descriptions. We are focused on sharing accurate information about places via online and mobile services. Exact location, how to get there, why to go there and what to see, who was there before and what they experienced.

We're also providing an easy to use platform for traders to make their travel offers more enticing and rich and a great social site for travelers wanting to share or plan their journeys.

[Dave]

A good option for travelers is TripTouch, a a worldwide travel homepage:
http://www.triptouch.com/

They also have a cool widget for iGoogle and Netvibes:

http://www.triptouch.com/widgets

[Dan]

Sorry to hear about the site.

Travelers who want personalized trip recommendations based on their preferences can visit http://www.tripbase.com.

[Ed: Dan is with Trip Technologies the creators of TripBase.]

[chris]

Sorry to hear about your site. Another wonderful site for your users to visit is www.professionaltravelguide.com.

ProfessionalTravelGuide.com is the world's most comprehensive online trip planning resource featuring a database of more than 159,000 hotels, 10,000 hotel reviews, 150 cruise reviews, and 7,000 destinations updated by local travel professional journalists based around the world. Also, travelers will have unfettered, free access to breaking travel news, images and streaming videos - in short, all the industry insider information that previously was only available to travel professionals. Every travel agency pays a fee per seat to license our content through our parent company, Northstar Travel (owners of Travel Weekly, etc) in order to help plan wonderful vacations for their clients and for the FIRST time we are providing all of this proprietary travel content FREE for everyone on the web.

[Ed. Chris Wilson is a regional sales manager for Professional Travel Guide.]

[Chicke Fitzgerald]

Having been on the entrepreneurial journey ourselves for two years, we appreciate that companies like TripHub pave the way for the others that will come into this space.

Congratulations on a good run guys.

I'd like to add www.roadtripwizard.com to the list (rebranding next week as www.roadescapes.com). We are geared at the road traveler.

Chicke

[Josh]

Josh and John,

sorry to see you guys moving on. let's catch up soon when the dust has settled. In the meantime, some of your users may appreciate our new group trip planning collaboration tools at NileGuide (www.nileguide.com).

[J Coppedge]

Sorry to hear you've closed your doors - wanted to give your users another travel planning resource to use. Gusto.com provides travel planning tools with reviews, blogs and bookmarks to keep track of their next trip.

[Brian]

Like many others, we appreciate the efforts of the TripHub team as early pioneers in web-based group trip planning tools. We wish you folks all the best in the future!

For those planning a trip with friends and/or family, Triporama's free Group Trip Planner offers a group trip home page, invite management, shared bookmarks, and a number of other collaborative tools.

Check it out at http://www.triporama.com

[James]

heard through techcrunch that ye guys are turning off the lights. sorry to see you go, i'm sure ye guys will be back with another start-up. I find yahoo trip planner pretty good. tc

[george pierce]

Like to work with Josh or any tech folks that have the passion to produce travel video widgets for trip planning and sharing, a travel video meta index linking products and services for ad syndication/SEO and a new function for the player- we're looking for travel passionate tech team-all the best guys and good run in the space! George Pierce, CEO, www.videopassports.com Palo Alto, CA

[AlexandraF]

Sorry to hear about the closure of triphub, it is always a downer to hear about a site like this closing their doors, and I wish you the best of luck with your future projects.

I am the Community Manager for Guidespot.com, a free and easy-to-use publishing platform for anybody who wants to make a guide on anything. Users can insert images, text, links, videos, business listings, and more and then drag and drop the elements around the guide for a personal layout. Guidespot just introduced Community Guides, where multiple people can create a guide together.

A great resource for travel, coordination, planning,venting and beyond, Guidespot is a fun tool and interactive community!

[Travis Snelling]

As stated by many before me, hate to see you guys go. In regards to the growing list of travel planning resources, http://TripAtlas.com should definitely be included. With over 90 million pages of travel related content, it's the world's largest travel resource.

All the best in the future.

Travis Snelling