We get it, making an itinerary is not for everyone nor is it for every trip. Going to the beach to simply indulge in food, drinks, hammock naps, and oh yeah the ocean should be just that – simple! Just don’t forget your favorite sunglasses and end up digging through the Walgreens clearance shelf! Been there… way too many times!
We often visit places without specific plans. But there are several helpful tools we use to make sure we can navigate unfamiliar areas, explore local foods, and find places to stay on a whim.
Offline navigation is a must. You never know when your GPS or cellular reception is going to fail you. Now is that such a bad thing? We love unplugging – but, since we fall short of those special Jack Sparrow skills, a GPS is a must. We highly recommend apps for offline navigation which allow you to download maps right to your device so you can get around with as little hassle as possible. One of our favorites that we’ve used for years is Maps.me.
Maps.me allows you to download detailed area maps which include points of interest such as hotels, restaurants, landmarks, and so forth. The maps are searchable offline and even allow offline navigation. You can drop pins to save locations as well. These are all incredibly useful features especially when visiting remote hiking areas so you can easily make your way back to civilization. While we still prefer Waze for navigating, if you have no signal, Maps.me gets it done. This app is totally free so expect a few banner ads. (In case you’re wondering, we’re not getting any shiny nickels for recommending it…. But maybe one day we will ?)
Usually, we book accommodations well before leaving home however, there have been several trips in which we set off without knowing exactly where we’ll be resting our heads each night. Sounds scary? Well maybe so, but it really allows for a lot of flexibility. For example we took a one week road trip from Atlanta, Georgia that took us as far west as Carlsbad, New Mexico. We knew we would pass through New Orleans, Lafayette, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston but did not actively plan out which of these cities we would stay in on the way to New Mexico and which ones we would stay in on our way home. We loved using Hotwire.com for their Hot Rate Hotel feature to grab last minute deals about 12-24 hours before landing at our next stop. The best part is we used the map feature to narrow where we would stay to zones that included either a desired location; such as near Terry Black’s Barbecue in Austin, Texas (Huge tender Beef Ribs, enough said!) or areas close to the interstate along our route of travel. Priceline.com also offers a similar feature with mystery deals, but historically we’ve had better luck with Hotwire’s Hot Rate, or booking through Expedia. Last minute deals have definitely saved us tons of time and money on our impromptu road trips.
If you’re passing through an area or traveling briefly to a city and have no idea how much time you’ll have, there are some quick ways to help discover some of the highlights and allow you to plan around a tight schedule.
We use the “VisitACity” app which has activities listed for major cities and also helps estimate how much time you will spend on those activities as well. While we are talking about NOT making itineraries- VisitACity can help create one for you – and this app is also free! For example, you can pick a city and select the number of days desired and it will create a fairly robust itinerary that specifies where to go with specific times and links to secure tickets. For example, there’s a three-day “family” itinerary available on the app for Atlanta that includes several totally cool attractions. You can choose to follow the entire itinerary offered or pick and choose activities that appear fun to you! We find it to be a great way to narrow down some fun things to do without a whole lot of planning ahead. The app does have one draw back: while it is great for many major locales, it may not be as useful for lesser traveled cities.
TripAdvisor, on the other hand, usually has pretty great lists based on traveler reviews of top rated activities, hotels, and restaurants for just about every city. We love that it often has lists for cheap eats and little dollar signs to help us keeps costs in line as well.
Keep a few of these apps handy and you can adventure off to anywhere in a pinch. Even if you’ve planned ahead with a solid itinerary, these tools can still be useful for making quick back up plans!
Do you have other helpful apps and tools you use? Let us know on our social media pages!
Be sure to check out our gallery or destination pages to get inspired for that next quick trip!
