TripIt, Wanderlog and what each of them is actually for

TripIt: a tidy record of what you have booked

You forward it a confirmation email and it builds a master itinerary. For a frequent traveller with a lot of flights, that is genuinely useful, and its paid tier adds real-time flight alerts that people who fly weekly rate highly.

The complaints in reviews cluster around the parsing itself: dates read wrong, and other people's bookings occasionally merged into a trip. Reviewers also describe the interface as dated and sharing as awkward. It is built around one traveller, so a group is not really its case.

Wanderlog: strong at deciding where to go

Wanderlog is the most complete of the three. Map-based planning is what reviewers praise most: saving places, seeing them spatially, understanding the route before you leave. Its free tier is generous, covering unlimited trips, collaboration and expense tracking.

The recurring complaints are performance on a phone once an itinerary gets large, and what sits behind the paid tier. Offline access is the one reviewers object to most, at roughly £30 to £45 a year, which is the feature you need precisely when you are abroad with roaming off.

Holiday Board: running the days once it is booked

We deliberately do not compete on the first two jobs. There is no flight search, no hotel search, no discovery feed and no map inside the app.

What it does is the bit after: a day for every date, what time the group actually needs to leave as opposed to what time the thing starts, who is on which plan, what each person is packing and wearing, and who owes what by the end.

Where each one wins

• You fly constantly and want your bookings organised: TripIt
• You have not decided where to go and want maps and discovery: Wanderlog
• The flights are booked and the group needs to be organised: Holiday Board
• You want offline access without paying yearly for it: Holiday Board, where it is free on every plan
• You want the money split inside the same app as the plans: Holiday Board

The thing none of them do well

Groups split up. Four go diving while three stay by the pool. Most planners assume one itinerary that the whole group follows, which is why the diving trip lands on everyone's Tuesday.

Holiday Board lets you say who is on a plan, so it shows on their day rather than everyone's, and what it says to bring only reaches their packing lists. Plans are for everyone until you say otherwise, so a trip where you all stick together needs no extra work.