Apps for Easy Travel
Roadtrippers and Waze are apps and websites that allow you to chart your course by way of digital map for your trip. Both are quite different in terms of audience. One seems better for spontaneity, and the other is better for getting to your designation quickly and easily. Keep reading to find out more about these apps and how they might work to help book your next overnight stay.
Roadtrippers
Roadtrippers is a site of maps made for travelers. It includes different trip ideas for camping, road trips and RV trips. Roadtrippers also offers interesting blog posts and stories from other travelers. It is a web and mobile travel planning platform and more than 5.5 million trips have been planned and booked through the site. Roadtrippers offers creative and unique content about off-the-beaten-path places to travel to and explore. They maintain a database of these locations and the applications are free to use.
Roadtrippers helps people discover, plan and book trips with an easy-to-navigate system. You can plan a trip, book a hotel and explore maps and things to do in the area. Roadtrippers calls itself the “ultimate road travel companion.” Cofounders James Fisher and Tatiana Parent are “firm believers that you’re less than five minutes away from something (or someone) you can’t find anywhere else.” The application lists anything from diners, museums, best kept hikes and other attractions, natural wonders and “weird stuff.” You can put in your route, and the app will show you were these hidden treasures are along the way.
The app can be downloaded to your Apple or Android products, so you can have this travel companion in your pocket for all your travels. The reviews of both the mobile app and website are favorable and both are easy to navigate. The mobile app was nice to use, which is good since most travelers would be using either a phone or tablet when on the road. The maps through the app are really easy to use and seem best for those who are looking for spontaneous things to do and a wanderlust-type road trip. The premise seems to really highlight that the fun is in the journey and not the destination.
The blog feature also lets you read more about adventures and gives you ideas of where to take your next trip. Through the creative storytelling and interactive map routes, you can see photos and exact locations of all sorts of travel idea destinations.
Waze
Waze works by connecting drivers with each other to create local communities of commuters. This is more than just a travel app and can help with your daily commutes even more than travel destinations. Users can find out where there are delays, where police traps might be and new routes for shortening their daily commute time.
Once a user enters in their destination address, they drive like they would with most map GPS applications. Leaving this app open, however, allows for collecting real-time road conditions data. If a user would like to be a more active participant with the app, they can report accidents, where police traps might be and other road conditions or hazards to let their fellow drivers as areas to avoid. The Waze community also strives to keep their online maps up to date and accurate for the area. Using this app versus your GPS allows real-time updates, and you won’t have to remember to sync it like you do a GPS to keep up with road construction and other changes.
Waze does have a great community board that connects you with other drivers. Part of their tagline is that the app gives you a “personal heads up from a few million of your friends on the road.” You can also connect with friends on Facebook and coordinate travel so that you can arrive to the designation at the same time and so you can see your friend’s progress if you will be meeting to ride on to another designation together. Waze also lets you know where the safest and cheapest gas stations are.