What's the deal with Planapple? A Full Review [2024]

Planning trips on your own is great until you are left with a mess of disorganized travel ideas and information. It can be overwhelming, especially if you do it on paper – not to mention the carbon footprint!

Travel planner apps were born to solve it – the answer to the cries of many frustrated travelers who needed a better and easier way to plan their trip. If you are looking for a travel planner that would let you sign in relief, you should definitely check out Pilot.

But we also continue to review more travel services to help you compare their features before coming to a decision. Today, we bring you Planapple.

Planapple wants you to say goodbye to your conventional planning routine. It wants you to get rid of the clutter involved in manual travel planning like stacks of notes, maps, printed travel information, etc.

Read our honest review to find out if it’s the best vacation planner for you!

What is Planapple?

Simply put, Planapple is a travel planner that aims to simplify and ease the task of creating a travel itinerary.

With its many features, the platform helps you brainstorm, gather, organize, plan, and share your trip ideas with your travel mates. It doesn’t generate itineraries automatically but mimics manual planning where you have to fill all the deets! Moreover, you can plan trips with your friends or family together via this trip itinerary planner.

Planapple was founded by Pete Rice and Mike Edmunds based on their past experiences of travel planning. At present, it is only available on the web, and there’s a separate mobile web version for ease of use. Unfortunately, there’s no Planapple app yet. 

How Much Does Planapple Cost?

It’s completely free of charge! It earns a small revenue from bookings made via affiliate links. However, users can contribute funds to the functioning of the travel planner.

How to Use Planapple?

Wondering how to plan a trip using Planapple? It is pretty straightforward. But, you can also try out its demo trip to understand the features well before actually using it. 

The first step would be creating a “New Trip” by specifying the destination and dates of travel. Then, you can add co-travelers to take part in the trip planning via email.

Now, let us explain the itinerary planner’s main functions:

• The “Idea Finder” is all about brainstorming travel ideas, and Planapple lets you surf the web right there. You can look for places to stay, things to see and do, places to eat, transportation options, and other relevant information and save them.
• The “Notebook” option helps you save notes, web pages, and other information under different categories. The ideas you have saved before also appear here. 
• The “Discussion” feature lets you chat with your trip mates and plan the itinerary better. For example, if you suggest a hostel to stay in, your friends can comment their opinion on it.
• The “Itinerary” is where you put things together once decisions have been made! You can add, edit, and delete stuff. In addition, travelers who are part of the itinerary can also vote on the destinations and attractions in the itinerary and come to a consensus. 

What we liked about Planapple

• Plan trips together

Planapple helps you invite your travel mates and get them to be a part of the planning process. This way, you don’t have to carry the burden of coordinating with them outside Planapple and create an itinerary alone. It checks the basics of a social travel planner, in our opinion.

• TripIt collaboration

If you are using TripIt to store all your flight booking information, you would be delighted to know that you can import these details to Planapple! You have to set the end and start days of travel for the sync to happen properly. 

On another note, you can learn more about TripIt functions by reading its review here!

• Easy and convenient 

Planapple does a solid job of helping travelers draw a good itinerary. Its features are quite useful, although basic, and they do simplify planning. You can access all your information in one place and save time. 

• Planapple extension

PlanApple offers a downloadable extension that lets you save travel ideas you come across when surfing the web. This is quite handy!

What We Don’t Like about Planapple

• Basic 

Planapple as a social travel planner doesn’t offer a lot.

Everything from its features to design to available resources is pretty limited. Its other alternatives like Pilot (also free!) is packed with more interesting features like a budgeting tool, packing list, and to-do lists. We also think Planapple’s user interface can be more attractive for the user.

• No Planapple mobile app

PlanApple is yet to introduce a separate mobile app. Although its mobile web version can be accessed offline, it doesn’t offer the same experience as that of a mobile app. 

• No travel content

The blog section of PlanApple is VERY outdated. It would be great if Planapple can provide inspirational travel content for its users to gain more knowledge about different destinations, travel services, etc. Not a deal-breaker but a nice-to-have!

Is Planapple Worth It?

So, what is the verdict on the review of Planapple?

Well, we have mixed feeling about the web app. On one hand, if all you need is a bare-bone travel planner, Plapple is very suitable for you. With TripIt integrations and convenient extensions, the free web-based application can help you create a decent travel itinerary.

However, there’s a lot of room for improvement, especially in this day and age. The outdated look may be offputting to many, while the interface may be clunky and hard to navigate.

We believe that you can definitely give it a try if you're curious, but there are certainly better travel planning apps out there!

Our Rating: 3.2/5

Pros:

• Completely free!
• Integration with TripIt
• Social features
• Convenient Extension

Cons:

• No Complimentary Guide
• Outdated look
• No mobile app

Plan with Pilot instead!

Speaking of Planapple alternatives, consider our brand new social trip planner, Pilot!