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Google Launches 'Google Trips' Personalized Travel Planner (techcrunch.com)

Google has an app for just about everything. Their latest application, called Google Trips, aims to help you better plan your vacations and other travels. TechCrunch reports: Called Google Trips, the iOS and Android app pulls in a combination of data from Google Maps and crowdsourced contributions from other travels, in order to offer a personalized travel guide that helps you keep track of your day trips, reservations, points of interest, tourist attractions, restaurants and more. The home screen includes a search box with a prompt "where do you want to go?" for planning new trips, and other cards let you keep track of your current and upcoming vacations and plans. What's helpful is that each city you plan to visit during one of your trips can each have its own tab within the larger "Trip" section, and with a simple toggle switch, you can download all the information about that destination for offline access. Meanwhile, on each city's screen, a variety of colorful cards help you jump into various sections like "Saved places," "Day Plans," "Food and Drink," "Getting around," "Things to do," "Reservations," and more. Google says Trips can show you the most popular day plans and itineraries for the top 200 cities worldwide. This information is actually based on historic visit data from other travelers, which Google has then assembled into lists that include the most popular sights and attractions. In addition to sightseeing, the app can also track flight, hotel, car and restaurant reservations, which makes the app something of a competitor to Concur's TripIt, and, to some extend, the new territory Airbnb is carving out with its own forthcoming Airbnb Trips app, which will focus on travel services. However, what makes Google Trips compelling is that it leverages Google's ability to tap into the data you have stored in your Gmail, as it automatically gathers your reservations from your email and organizes them into trips on your behalf. Google Trips is live now on Android and iOS.

38 comments

  1. yeah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I call it "new plan on how to smuggle between 200 countries since Tor was busted"

  2. tripit already did it ;-) by gavron · · Score: 1

    I look forward to seeing Google's product in play -- they've done such an awesome job with most others (notable exceptions being Google+ and Hangouts).

    I use tripit.com. It can accept forwarded email confirmations, sieve out important data, put it all together, and present it online or on the Android app to make everything convenient.

    It tells me the arrival gate at the airport, the next gate for the connecting flight, and I get flight delays from it quicker than through the airline (SWA, DL, UA) own text messaging system.

    I hope google is successful... they have a high bar to climb to beat tripit.com.

    OB DISC: after using it for one week I bought the "pro" version to get even more info. I love it.
    OB DISC2: I travel business/pleasure about 4 times a year...

    Ehud Gavron
    Tucson AZ US

    1. Re:tripit already did it ;-) by temcat · · Score: 1

      Does it work with non-English source documents while presenting the output in English?

  3. If only you could tell Google '..via..' by RealGene · · Score: 2

    I want to tell Maps 'from Hartford CT to Baltimore MD via the Tappan Zee Bridge'.
    Dragging the blue line is a pain, and usually ends up with a corkscrew at some point.

    --
    Mission: To provide products that consume time and energy as entertainingly as permitted by the laws of thermodynamics.
    1. Re:If only you could tell Google '..via..' by eriks · · Score: 1

      Google maps has had multi-destination directions for years. I use it all the time:

      https://www.google.com/maps/di...

      If slashcode mangles the link, there's a + in a circle where you can add a destination.

    2. Re:If only you could tell Google '..via..' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did you read his comment? Your response isn't applicable...

    3. Re:If only you could tell Google '..via..' by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 1
    4. Re:If only you could tell Google '..via..' by eriks · · Score: 1

      Did you look at the link, or try it on google maps? It's precisely applicable, as the map I posted does exactly what the OP asked for: Hartford to Baltimore via the Tappan Zee, without the need to drag the route line.

    5. Re:If only you could tell Google '..via..' by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      But, the real question is, why would you want to come down here to Baltimore, it is so much nicer up there in CT. :)

      Personally, I use the GW on that path, but the Tappan Zee works as well. I have family up in Springfield, so have driven that path often enough to almost get it without Maps on the Cell, but I always get confused in New York, and it always seems that the GPS drops out right there too.

      Fun times.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  4. Nice and useful by Camembert · · Score: 0

    I do a lot of trips and just tried it for a past trip for which the app found details in my emails. It also found suggested trip details (not etickets) so don't blindly accept its suggestions. Anyway first impressions are good, lots of info in a personalised travel guide. And this is only a v1. Cool.

    1. Re:Nice and useful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How did you use something "for a past trip" that was only just released today? Lolwut?!!

    2. Re: Nice and useful by Camembert · · Score: 1

      Quite simply, the tool finds details of my past trips as well in my emails and I could use that to trigger the download of info about a previous destination.

    3. Re: Nice and useful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      What is the matter with everyone here? An app that goes through your emails and gives an advertising company complete details of your trips is a GOOD THING? Not only is it creepy as hell, it's one of the worst forms of privacy invasions I can think of. Can you all not actually think for yourselves and manage your own lives? People have been doing it for thousands of years.

      I never want personalized anything from any app or any company, especially Google. The cost is way too great.

    4. Re: Nice and useful by Camembert · · Score: 1

      Actually I use gmail privately, so in any case my mails are already there.

  5. No desktop by manu0601 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It is only available as smartphone app; Google considers it makes no sense to prepare a trip on a desktop?

    1. Re:No desktop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Welcome to the post-desktop world, where any laptop heavier than 6lbs is backbreaking and everything is designed for smartphones and tablets.

      That, and my guess is that the app is designed for on-the-go usage rather than serious sit-down planning.

    2. Re:No desktop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't see why I can't plan my trip on the desktop, then have it sent to the mobile device, preferably by plugging it into the computer (since the information is already on your computer). Some still prefer to have this done on a 19"+ monitor rather than on a 5.5" screen.

      Also, Google Maps already has the option to send a destination to my mobile device.

    3. Re:No desktop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bro, this is 2016, no one uses a desktop!

    4. Re:No desktop by manu0601 · · Score: 1

      Bro, this is 2016, no one uses a desktop!

      At least, I suspect the app developer does!

  6. yeah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    another service to track me... i'll install it right now... noooooooooooooooooooot

  7. Crowdsourced trips? by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    I feel a great Disturbance in the Force. As though millions of travelers cried out and were suddenly trolled.

    In the meantime Tucson, Az is a fabulous place. Don't believe that Hamlet guy.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  8. History of Google products by dysmal · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If history tells us anything, they'll shutter this in 30 months and around 6 months from now they'll shoehorn G+ or Youtube onto this product. Yet again snatching defeat from the jaws of victory!

  9. Sucks so far by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    Download iOS app.

    Asks for Google login - skip.

    Search for a city I'm planning to see, ask to create a trip. Oops, that requires a Google login of course...

    Sigh. Ok, here Googe is my login so you may track me even further.

    Go to create trip - "Failed to create trip. Try again later".

    Heck of a job, Google.

    P.S. In the aftermath of no trip, tried other aspects of creating a plan for a city - Things to Do is empty, Food & Drink come up with nothing. So basically total server blowout.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Sucks so far by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait, a Google app that uses Google services requires a Google login? You're right, that does suck.

  10. Why not fix maps first? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's not 1970. You don't put arbitrary limits into your software in 2016. I want to plan a route with more than 10 stops. I want to save it for later. And I'd like to put in how long I plan to bet at each stop so I can actually be in control of my travel.

    I don't care about suggestions as to where I could go. I figured that out already. We have this awesome technology called "files" and "directories" that lets me save all of my stuff for my reservations. I don't need your help with that, either.

    Google, is it so hard to replicate the functionality of a piece of software made in 1988? It's even discontinued now, maybe you can buy it from Microsoft and figure out how they made arrays with more than one digit.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Streets_%26_Trips#History

    1. Re:Why not fix maps first? by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      It might even be old enough to run on an underpowered phone without much in the way of changes. It used to run on 256 MB of ram on XP after all, that is way less resources than even the crappiest phone around now.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  11. Google has an app for... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just a few minutes, before they get bored and say fuckit.

  12. Targetted ads. by grub · · Score: 1


    "Your trip to Saudi Arabia is next Monday. Would you like to see burkas from our valued advertising partners?"

    --
    Trolling is a art,
  13. Seems useful if you travel a ton by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As somebody who travels a ton for both business and pleasure I really like what I see with it so far. I've been playing around with it and when I get stuck somewhere lousy in the middle of nowhere for work this seems to pretty easily make clear what's around both attraction and food wise as well as the standard Google reservations functions. What's weird is that since I do all my travel planning through Google it grabbed my past trips as well and listed where I'd been. Which is cool and super creepy.

  14. Annnnd canceled in 3... 2... 1... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can't wait until Alphabet (that open rectum of a company) cancels it.

  15. ISIS Targeting Tool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Looks like Her Doctor Schmidtty is up to old tricks to help his goat fucker brothers in ISIS.

  16. great. for my first 'personalization'.... by karlandtanya · · Score: 1

    I would like to set default "avoid tolls"

    --
    "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
  17. ERghh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'll use it if we can have classic google maps back? I don't know who designs software there; but they need a talking too. I want a map - not 400 pictures over the map. I want split screen street view and map. When you go back to making handy to use stuff I'll have a look at the other things. You've made be use Bing maps again! ergh.

  18. Re:great. for my first 'personalization'.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I would like to set default "avoid tolls"

    Yeah, I've been screwed by that. What I really want is "avoid stupid tolls". If a toll road saves me money/time more than it costs to take it, I'm fine with that, but don't put me on a toll road to save me 2 minutes and no miles. Yes, that's a real example, I just double checked it. That's just stupid. Just use the IRS average cost per mile and minimum wage for time. Use anything.

    BTW, avoid highways is really nice. It often finds a scenic route that isn't much longer.