Comparison
Plot a Trip vs Google Travel
Google Travel is a powerful research tool — find flights, compare hotel prices, and get AI-powered suggestions. Plot a Trip is a dedicated trip planner — build itineraries, track budgets, and collaborate with your group. Here's how they compare.
TL;DR
Choose Plot a Trip if you need a real trip planner with itineraries, budget tracking, and group collaboration. Choose Google Travel if you want free trip research with AI suggestions, hotel/flight price tracking, and the world's best map data. Many travelers use both.
See the Difference
Plot a Trip: Full itinerary on an interactive map
Day-by-day planning, color-coded routes, drag-and-drop stops
Plot a Trip: Budget tracking built in
Multi-currency, cost splitting, spending charts — none of which Google Travel offers
Research Tool vs Planning Tool
Google Travel is excellent at the research phase — discovering destinations, comparing hotel prices, tracking flight costs, and getting AI-powered suggestions via Gemini. It aggregates information from across Google's ecosystem and presents it in a clean interface. But it stops at research. Plot a Trip is where you actually organize and execute the plan — building a structured day-by-day itinerary, assigning stops to specific days, tracking your budget, and coordinating with your travel group. Think of Google Travel as the "what" and "where," and Plot a Trip as the "when," "how much," and "who's doing what."
Map Experience
Google Maps is best-in-class for navigation — there's no arguing with the world's most comprehensive map data, Street View, and real-time traffic. But Google Maps isn't a trip planning interface. You can save places to lists and get directions between up to 10 stops, but you can't build an itinerary, assign stops to days, or visualize multi-day routes. Plot a Trip uses Mapbox to create a dedicated planning canvas — drop pins, draw color-coded routes with transport type icons, snap to actual roads, and see your entire multi-day journey on one interactive map. It's the difference between a navigation tool and a planning tool.
Itinerary Management
Google Travel has no real itinerary builder. You can save places to lists and Google will auto-organize some booking confirmations from Gmail, but you can't schedule activities to specific days, reorder them with drag-and-drop, or build a structured timeline. Plot a Trip is built around itinerary management — a full day-by-day timeline with accommodation tracking, activity scheduling, drag-and-drop reordering, and a split map-plus-timeline view. If you need to plan what you're doing each day of a multi-week trip, Google Travel simply doesn't have the tools.
Budget Tracking
Google Travel has zero expense tracking. It can show you hotel and flight prices during the research phase, but once you've booked, there's no way to track what you're spending, manage multiple currencies, or split costs with travel companions. Plot a Trip includes comprehensive budget tracking: per-stop breakdowns, daily burn rate charts, spending by category, multi-currency auto-conversion with live exchange rates, cost splitting among group members, and settlement summaries. If you're traveling internationally or with a group, this is a major gap in Google's offering.
Collaboration
Google's sharing capabilities are very basic when it comes to trip planning. You can share a Google Maps list with someone, but there's no real-time co-editing, no activity voting, no threaded comments on stops, and no presence indicators showing where your co-planners are looking. Plot a Trip is built for group trip planning with real-time co-editing, live presence indicators, activity voting, threaded comments on individual stops, and shared budget tracking. Only the trip owner needs a Pro plan; everyone else joins free.
Where Google Travel Wins
Let's be honest about Google Travel's strengths. It's completely free with no paid tier. Gemini AI provides genuinely helpful trip suggestions and destination research. Google has the best map data in the world — Street View, business hours, reviews, photos, and real-time traffic. Hotel and flight price tracking with alerts is built in. And Gmail integration automatically surfaces booking confirmations. These are real advantages, especially in the research and booking phase. Plot a Trip doesn't try to replace Google — it picks up where Google leaves off, turning research into an organized, collaborative plan.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | Plot a Trip | Google Travel |
|---|---|---|
| Core Approach | ||
| Primary purpose | End-to-end trip planning and collaboration | Trip research and booking aggregation |
| Primary interface | Interactive world map with routes | Search results + Google Maps integration |
| Trip management | Full itinerary builder | Saved places and basic lists |
| AI features | — | Gemini AI trip suggestions |
| Trip Planning | ||
| Day-by-day itinerary | — | |
| Accommodation tracking | Hotel price tracking | |
| Activity scheduling | — | |
| Drag-and-drop reorder | — | |
| Timeline view | — | |
| Route visualization | Color-coded, snap-to-road | Google Maps (10-stop limit) |
| Flight/hotel price tracking | — | |
| Saved places lists | ||
| Budget & Expenses | ||
| Budget tracking | — | |
| Multi-currency support | — | |
| Cost splitting | Pro | — |
| Per-stop breakdown | — | |
| Daily burn rate | — | |
| Collaboration | ||
| Real-time co-editing | Pro | — |
| Live presence indicators | Pro | — |
| Activity voting | Pro | — |
| Comments on stops | Pro | — |
| Trip sharing | Basic (shared lists) | |
| Export & Data | ||
| PDF export | Pro | — |
| Calendar export | Pro | — |
| CSV export | Pro | — |
| Platform & Pricing | ||
| Price | Free / $29.99 per year | Free |
| Web app | ||
| Mobile app | Coming soon | Google Maps app |
| Account required | Google account | |
Choose Plot a Trip if you...
- Need a structured day-by-day itinerary
- Want budget tracking with multi-currency and cost splitting
- Plan group trips with real-time collaboration
- Want route visualization with transport types
- Need data export (PDF, CSV, calendar)
- Want a dedicated trip planning workspace
Choose Google Travel if you...
- Want completely free trip research
- Need AI-powered destination suggestions
- Want hotel and flight price tracking
- Prefer deep Google ecosystem integration
- Need the world's best map data for navigation
- Want to save places from Google Search results
Frequently Asked Questions
Why use Plot a Trip instead of Google Travel?
Is Google Travel completely free?
Can I use both together?
Does Google Travel have budget tracking?
Does Google Travel have collaboration features?
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