Wanderlog and Stippl both promise perfect travel planning. Our comparison reveals which app delivers and which disappoints.
"Great app! It was quite handy to use to plan our trip and to share our trip itinerary and travel notes with friends / co-travelers in the group. The app also proactively gives helpful suggestions like travel tips and even tells you when certain restaurants or attractions in your travel list might be closed. I've used the free version and it was still very helpful."
"I was so excited to find this for an upcoming trip with lots of stops. I began adding all my hotels and others places I wanted to check out to discover I have to pay for the map usage. 50 bucks for a once in a lifetime trip is so not worth it. Maybe if you travel multiple times a year, it would be worth it. You really should consider a monthly rate with options to put the account on hold."
Wanderlog offers a robust itinerary creation system that allows you to build detailed day-by-day travel plans. The drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to organize flights, accommodations, activities, and transportation in a visual timeline format. Unlike basic planning tools, Wanderlog automatically populates location details including descriptions, photos, ratings, hours of operation, and contact information when you add destinations.
The platform integrates seamlessly with Google Maps, showing travel times and distances between locations to help you plan realistic daily schedules.
One of Wanderlog's standout features is its Google Docs-style collaborative editing. Multiple travelers can simultaneously edit the same itinerary, making it perfect for group trips where everyone wants input on the plans. Team members can add suggestions, vote on activities, and contribute to different aspects of the trip planning process.
The collaboration extends to expense splitting, where group members can track shared costs and settle bills at the end of the trip, similar to apps like Splitwise.
Every destination you add is automatically plotted on an interactive map powered by Google Maps. The visual representation helps you understand the geographic relationship between locations and optimize your daily routes. For road trips, Wanderlog connects your destinations with route lines, giving you a clear view of your travel path.
The Pro version includes a route optimization feature that automatically rearranges your daily activities in the most efficient order based on location and travel times.
Wanderlog can automatically import your travel reservations by forwarding confirmation emails to a unique trip-specific email address or by connecting your Gmail account. The system recognizes booking confirmations for flights, hotels, rental cars, and activities, automatically adding them to your itinerary with all relevant details.
This eliminates manual data entry and ensures all your important travel information is centralized in one place.
The platform provides personalized recommendations for attractions, restaurants, and activities based on your destination and preferences. These suggestions come from travel guides, user-generated content, and integrations with services like TripAdvisor. You can add recommended places to your itinerary with a single click.
The Pro version includes an AI assistant that provides local tips and suggestions as you plan your trip.
Wanderlog includes comprehensive budgeting tools that let you set trip budgets and track expenses by category (flights, accommodation, food, activities). The expense tracker supports multiple currencies and provides visual breakdowns of your spending patterns.
For group travel, the bill-splitting feature allows you to specify who paid for what and how costs should be divided among travelers, with automatic calculations for settling up.
The mobile app stores your itineraries locally, allowing you to access your plans even without internet connectivity. This is particularly valuable for international travel or when visiting areas with poor cellular coverage. The Pro version enhances this with offline maps and full functionality.
The app syncs seamlessly across devices, so changes made on your phone are instantly available on your computer and vice versa.
Wanderlog integrates deeply with Google Maps, allowing you to export your daily itinerary directly to Google Maps for turn-by-turn navigation. This creates a seamless transition from planning to execution, as you can follow your pre-planned route using the navigation app you're already familiar with.
The system shows estimated travel times between destinations and can factor in different transportation methods.
The platform hosts user-generated travel guides that you can browse for inspiration and practical tips. These guides include detailed itineraries, photos, and recommendations from real travelers who have visited your destination. You can save items from these guides directly to your own trip plan.
This community aspect helps you discover hidden gems and local favorites that might not appear in traditional guidebooks.
Wanderlog serves as a central repository for all your travel documents and notes. You can attach files, add detailed notes to each destination, create packing lists, and store important travel information. The checklist feature helps ensure you don't forget important tasks or items.
The platform also allows you to add custom sections and organize information in whatever way works best for your travel style.
Unlike many travel planners that work best for single-destination trips, Wanderlog excels at complex, multi-city itineraries and road trips. You can add unlimited stops, plan routes between cities, and organize your trip by geographic regions or time periods.
The visual map interface makes it particularly useful for planning driving routes and understanding the spatial relationships between destinations.
Plan group trips like working on a Google Doc—everyone can edit simultaneously, add suggestions, and contribute to the itinerary in real-time.
See all your destinations plotted on an interactive map with travel times and distances, making it easy to plan logical daily routes.
Get full itinerary building, collaboration, budgeting, and recommendation features without paying a subscription fee.
Export your daily plans directly to Google Maps for navigation, creating a smooth transition from planning to exploring.
Handle everything from detailed itineraries and expense tracking to document storage and packing lists in a single platform.
Unlike TripIt's automatic email scanning, you often need to manually input reservation details and lesser-known attraction information.
Wanderlog doesn't provide flight delay notifications or gate changes like specialized travel management apps—you'll need airline apps for that.
At $39.99/year, some users find the Pro subscription costly for features like offline access and route optimization that could be essential.
If you prefer spontaneous travel or just need basic planning, Wanderlog's comprehensive feature set might feel like overkill.
While you can research flights and hotels, you can't book them directly through the app—you'll need to use separate booking sites.
The core planning interface uses intuitive drag-and-drop functionality that lets travelers easily reorder destinations, adjust durations, and visualize their route on an integrated map. Smart routing suggestions optimize travel between locations while timeline management helps users specify nights per destination and overall trip duration.
One of Stippl's most beloved unique features automatically creates cinematic 3D videos from your planned route and uploaded photos. Users consistently praise this visual storytelling capability that transforms static itineraries into shareable travel movies, making it particularly appealing for social media-savvy travelers.
The AI planner generates personalized itineraries in under two minutes based on your preferences, travel style, and interests. This feature provides activity brainstorming and budget optimization while offering destination-specific recommendations tailored to individual travelers.
The expense tracking system supports multi-currency transactions with real-time exchange rates, category-based tracking with color coding, and detailed spending analysis over time. Group expense splitting with settlement tracking makes it especially valuable for collaborative travel, while CSV export capabilities enable personal record-keeping.
Users can forward travel confirmations to Stippl for automatic organization, creating a centralized view of all confirmed versus pending bookings. Direct integration with Booking.com, Airbnb, Viator, and Hostelworld enables in-app booking while automated updates reflect reservation changes in your itinerary.
Real-time collaboration allows multiple users to edit itineraries simultaneously with permission management controls. Shared packing lists with task assignment and built-in messaging coordinate group decisions, while transparent expense sharing maintains harmony among travel companions.
Choose from 10+ scratch map styles to visualize visited destinations, creating a gamified element to travel tracking. Combined with travel profile features that store favorite places and recommendations, this creates a personalized travel hub for documenting adventures.
Available on iOS (15.1+), Android, and web platforms with seamless data sync between devices. The mobile app offers GPS integration and camera functionality while the web platform provides enhanced planning tools better suited for detailed trip layout and organization.
Browse and copy itineraries from travel influencers and community members, then customize them for your own adventures. Social connections let you follow friends and family for travel inspiration while content creation tools help travel bloggers monetize their itineraries.
Organize multi-modal transport including flights, trains, cars, and ferries with special features for overnight journeys like cruises. Real-time updates provide notifications for flight delays and schedule changes while accommodation integration spans budget to luxury options.
Five-minute eSIM setup provides instant mobile data connectivity in over 190 countries. This emerging feature addresses a critical travel need by eliminating the hassle of finding local SIM cards or dealing with expensive roaming charges.
Travel journaling with photo integration and privacy controls helps preserve trip memories. Auto-generated travel reels transform photos into shareable video content while personal travel profiles showcase adventures and recommendations to your network.
Unlike competitors that excel in specific areas, Stippl genuinely consolidates planning, budgeting, packing, tracking, and sharing into a single elegant interface. Users consistently praise escaping the juggling act of multiple spreadsheets, apps, and documents that traditional travel planning requires.
The automatic 3D trip video generation creates cinematic representations of your journey that users describe as magical. Combined with digital scratch maps and visual route planning, these features transform travel from mere logistics into storytelling opportunities that rival professional travel content.
Real-time collaborative editing, shared packing lists with task assignments, and transparent expense splitting make group travel coordination remarkably smooth. Users highlight how Stippl eliminates common group travel friction around money management and responsibility distribution.
The platform's suggestion engine for hotels, restaurants, and activities receives consistent user praise, while the new AI trip planner generates personalized itineraries that actually match user preferences. This intelligent assistance saves hours of research time while discovering experiences users might otherwise miss.
Stippl's focus on adventure travel shows in features like multi-day transport options, outdoor activity suggestions, and route optimization for scenic drives. The platform understands adventure travelers' unique needs better than business-focused competitors like TripIt or generic tools like Google My Maps.
Users report frequent app crashes, white screen problems, and freezing that lasts over two minutes during normal operations. These technical issues make Stippl unsuitable for important travel planning where reliability is essential, creating frustration when users need to access information while traveling.
The platform struggles to find smaller cities, specific neighborhoods, or locations in certain countries like Kosovo and South Korea. Users consistently report being unable to plan trips to places that aren't major international destinations, forcing workarounds or alternative tools.
Once you create a trip and add locations, there's no edit option - users must delete entire trips and start over to make changes. This inflexibility conflicts with the natural evolution of travel plans and creates significant frustration when simple adjustments become major reconstruction projects.
Despite being available on multiple platforms, changes don't automatically sync between iPhone, iPad, and web versions without manual app restarts. This fundamental functionality gap undermines the seamless experience that modern users expect from travel planning tools.
Users report ignored support emails and lack of help documentation, leaving them struggling to understand basic functionality. The absence of guidance materials and responsive support means users often spend hours trying to accomplish simple tasks or simply abandon the platform.
The choice between Wanderlog and Stippl ultimately comes down to your priorities and tolerance for technical issues. Stippl offers the more ambitious and feature-rich experience with unique capabilities like 3D trip video generation, AI-powered planning, and comprehensive social sharing tools that make it particularly appealing for adventure travelers and content creators. Its all-in-one approach genuinely consolidates planning, budgeting, collaboration, and documentation in ways that Wanderlog doesn't match.
However, Stippl's innovative features come at a significant cost in reliability. Frequent crashes, sync issues, limited location databases, and poor customer support make it feel more like a beta product than a dependable travel companion. For important trips where you need consistent access to your itinerary, Stippl's technical instability poses real risks.
Wanderlog takes the opposite approach, prioritizing reliability and core functionality over flashy features. Its visual map-based planning works consistently, it offers a completely free tier that covers most users' needs, and it provides the stable experience that travel planning requires. While it lacks Stippl's cutting-edge features and social elements, it delivers on the fundamental promise of helping you plan and organize your trips without frustration.
The verdict: Choose Stippl if you're an adventure traveler or content creator who values innovative features and can tolerate technical issues as the price of accessing unique capabilities. Choose Wanderlog if you prioritize reliability, want proven functionality, or need a dependable tool for important travel planning where consistent access to your information is essential.
Wanderlog offers a completely free tier that covers most users' travel planning needs, making it the more budget-friendly option. Stippl operates on a freemium model with core features available for free, but its Premium subscription costs $24.99 annually or $3.99 monthly compared to Wanderlog's $39.99/year premium plan. However, Wanderlog's free version is more comprehensive, while Stippl's advanced features like enhanced collaboration and offline access require the paid subscription.
Stippl offers unique features that Wanderlog doesn't have: 3D trip video generation, AI-powered trip planning, comprehensive social sharing tools, and advanced group collaboration features with expense splitting. Wanderlog focuses on reliable core functionality with excellent visual map-based planning, solid offline capabilities, and consistent performance. Stippl is more feature-rich and innovative, while Wanderlog excels in doing the basics exceptionally well.
Wanderlog is significantly more reliable. Stippl suffers from frequent app crashes, white screen problems, sync issues between devices, and limited location databases that struggle with smaller cities or certain countries. Users report that Stippl feels unstable and unsuitable for critical travel planning. Wanderlog provides consistent performance and dependable functionality, making it the safer choice for important trips where you need guaranteed access to your itinerary.
Choose Stippl if you're an adventure traveler, content creator, or social media enthusiast who values cutting-edge features like 3D videos, AI planning, and social sharing capabilities. It's particularly appealing for group travel with its collaboration tools and expense splitting. Choose Wanderlog if you're a practical traveler who prioritizes reliability, needs consistent access to information, prefers business travel organization, or wants a dependable tool without technical headaches.
Wanderlog has a gentler learning curve with intuitive map-based planning that most users grasp quickly. Its interface is straightforward and focuses on core travel planning without overwhelming features. Stippl has a steeper learning curve due to its comprehensive feature set, and the lack of adequate documentation and customer support makes it harder to master. Users often struggle to understand Stippl's full capabilities, while Wanderlog's simplicity makes it immediately accessible to new users.
