Google for Travel: Plan Better with These 8 Tools
- Updated: 10/28/2023
- Janice
Google offers a suite of travel planning tools to help you travel better. These tools will make your life easier by saving you time and money and keeping you more organized at every stage of your trip.
Learn which tool to use and its special travel planning features in the sections below.
Table Of Contents
Overview: 8 Tools for Better Trip Planning
These eight Google trip planning tools are free, easy to use, and sync seamlessly across devices for excellent on-the-go access anytime and anyplace. Use them for their wide-ranging and flexible travel features.
- Google Maps. More than driving directions—create custom lists and maps.
- Google Explore. Discover where to go anywhere in the world for your budget and dates.
- Google Flights. Research flights and track price changes for most airlines.
- Google Hotels. More than a hotel search engine—learn the best neighborhoods to stay and ideal times to visit.
- Google Things to Do. Search for top sights, attractions, and activities for any destination.
- Google Chrome. Keep track of trip-related websites across devices.
- Google Docs. Use for itineraries and mobile note-keeping.
- Google Calendar. Schedule bookings and create shared calendars.
Google Maps
If you plan to use any Google tool to help with travel planning, use this one. Its functionality far exceeds driving and walking directions. Use it to create your own custom destination information and route plans in shareable lists and maps called “My Maps.”
See examples of a custom Google Maps list for Saugatuck, Michigan, and a “My Map” for the top things to do near San Ignacio, Belize, below.
How to use this map: In the map header, click the square tab to the left of my logo or click the enlarge frame to the right to view detail. You can save the map to “Your Places” on Google Maps by clicking the star next to the map name. Or you can share it by clicking the share icon.
When you create your own lists and maps, save places and attractions you want to visit or those you have already been to. Rely on them when you travel or share them with friends and family when you return.
Check out five reasons to use them and how to create your own in “Why You Will Love Google Maps for Trip Planning.”
Google Explore & Google Flights
Google Explore is a powerful map-based search tool built on top of the Google Flights search engine. Additionally, it offers links to outstanding trip-planning resources.
For any traveler who has puzzled over the question, “Where should I go next?”—Google Explore will be your new favorite shortcut to figure it out.
It shows all possible travel destinations across a navigable map from one location. A recent upgrade now extends beyond flight destinations. Users can now discover driving and combo flying-driving destinations, like National and State Parks and nearby small towns and resort locations.
For example, see the screenshot exploring where to go on a one-week trip in spring, using Chicago as the origin city.
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Learn more about using this powerful tool in “Travel Better: How to Best Use Google Flights Explore.”
Google Flights is a top airfare search engine. And it is the first travel planning website many seasoned travelers go to research route options and fare prices. In addition to cross-comparing fares, you can use Google Flights to track any flight. Once you follow a flight, Google will send you alerts about fare changes. When you see a dip, you can buy and save.
Learn more about setting Google Flights price tracker alerts in “How to Save Time & Money with Google Flights Price Tracker.”
Google Hotels
In addition to providing an easy-to-use navigable map to search for top lodging, Google Hotels features three little-known helpful buttons that could save you loads of time when you plan your next trip.
These buttons include:
Click any of these buttons, and they will quickly, elegantly, and expertly help you answer some of the most essential questions in travel planning.
The Where to stay? button will provide a neighborhood-by-neighborhood breakdown of where to stay in any city—from Miami to Mumbai. Watch this quick YouTube video to see where to find it.
The When to visit? button will give a month-by-month breakdown of the weather, including temperature ranges and rainfall, crowds, and pricing peaks, to help you determine the best time to visit.
The What you’ll pay? button will show you what you can expect to pay across lodging classes. Then filter your results for hotels in your budget.
Google also offers a search engine for rentals called—wait for it—Google Vacation Rentals. Discover listed rentals from Vio.com, BringFido.com, Evolve.com, BluePillow.com, and others. Find its button at the top of the Google Hotels main page.
Google Things to Do
Once you have your flights ticketed and your hotels booked, your next step is to figure out what you want to do at your destination once you arrive. Google can help with that. Visit its Things to Do page for any destination and get a shortcut to top sights, attractions, and activities.
For example, see the short clip below showing a scroll down the Google Things to Do page for Paris.
Scan the page for top sights or take a deeper dive—and search by interest—like Arts and Culture or Outdoors. Or search by neighborhood.
Click the save ribbon on a place you want to go, and this will save the item to a generic Google Maps list called Travel Plans. Or you can save it to a custom list you pre-created.
Learn how to create your own custom Google Maps lists for travel planning in “Why You Will Love Google Maps for Trip Planning.”
Google Chrome
As part of trip planning—you will review websites for hotels, activities, and service providers. When using Google Chrome as your search engine and while logged in, bookmark and save these sites to a destination-specific folder.
Organize your folders by location, and you will have all your best resources ready for easy reference anytime you need it, especially as your saved bookmark folders will sync across devices.
Learn how to create, view, and edit your Google Chrome bookmarks on this Google how-to page.
Google Docs
Google Docs is Google’s cloud-based word document editor that you can use to share and collaborate with others with real-time editing.
If you have a Google account, you have access to Google Docs. And you also have access to available space on your own free cloud-based Google Drive to store your documents.
If you do not have a Google account, create one here.
Use Google Docs to create itineraries or to save and store travel recommendations and likely lodging options.
Docs are shareable, downloadable, and sync across devices. Learn more about Google Docs on this tutorial page from Google, or watch this YouTube video.
Google Calendar
Google Calendar is another free, web-based tool you may already use for your day-to-day time scheduling and can also use to record trip bookings.
In addition to syncing across devices, Google Calendar works with Gmail to auto-create new calendar events from booking and ticket confirmation emails, sending them to your mobile Inbox for you to accept, reject, or edit. Learn more about how this works in “Tips to manage Calendar events in Gmail.”
You can even create a shareable trip-specific calendar on Google Calendar, which is helpful for group planning. See Google’s how-to instructions to “Create & share a group calendar.”
Related Reading
If you are searching for more travel planning tools to help you save time and money and to stay organized, check out the related articles below.
- 49 Things You Need to Do to Plan Your Best Trip (Free Travel Research & Planning Checklist)
- Why You Will Love Google Maps for Trip Planning
- Travel Better: How to Best Use Google Flights Explore
- How to Save Time & Money with Google Flights Price Tracker
- 5 Proven Ways to Simplify and Organize Your Travel Research
- Rental Car Insurance: When You Need It & When You Don’t
- Pack Faster & Better with This Universal Printable Packing List
- 25 Expert Packing Tips to Help You Travel Better
- Pre-Trip: A Practical Checklist to Close the House & Pack
Additional Trip Planning Resources
To further help you with travel planning, I share my go-to resources for every trip below.
Google Flights. My first research stop for affordable flights for every trip. Learn why here.
Google Hotels. Use its “Where to stay” button to discover the best neighborhoods to base your visit.
Booking.com. For hotel and rental bookings, I appreciate its flexible cancellation, candid user reviews, discounts, loyalty program, and easy-to-use interface.
Viator, Get Your Guide, & Airbnb Experiences. Quickly find and book highly-rated tours and activities on these sites.
Google Travel Things to Do & Google Maps. Find more things to do in your destination on Google Travel, then record where you want to visit on a custom Google Maps list.
AllTrails. Love to hike? Me too. I religiously use AllTrails to discover hiking and biking trails and download its offline maps to manage my hikes.
Guide Along. 5-star self-guided audio tours that are GPS-compatible for US road trips and national parks. We loved the Glacier National Park tour.
Insure My Trip. I never travel internationally without trip insurance. Learn why here. My preferred place to shop and compare policies is InsureMyTrip.com.
Plus, check out the 15 travel apps I use on trips, my preferred guidebooks, and my free customizable travel itinerary template, downloadable in four file formats.
About the author: Janice Moskoff is a travel writer and blogger who loves hiking, exploring the world, and reading. She writes to inspire travel-loving families, adult friends, and couples on her blog, Gather and Go Travel. Check out her bio, learn how she became a blogger, and discover how to work with her. Sign up for her monthly Discovery Newsletter to get her latest travel recommendations and how-to’s.
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Affiliate Disclosure: Some of the links on this page may be affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I earn a commission if you make a purchase. I only recommend products and companies I use. And the income goes to keeping the site community-supported and ads minimal.
Welcome to Gather and Go Travel, a blog inspiring families, adult friends, and couples to explore US and international destinations and to get outdoors. I am Janice, an experienced traveler to over 50 countries and a travel writer, book lover, and blogger. Learn more about me, read our story, and how to work with me.
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