12 Useful Travel Websites – Before, During and After Your Trip

Discover 12 useful travel websites for flights, accommodation, routes, trip planning and travel memories, including Trailmarker, Google Flights and Rome2Rio.

Planning a trip is considerably easier today than it was just a few years ago. You can compare flights in minutes, map out a route, research hotels and build an entire itinerary online before leaving home.

Good travel websites can also be useful during and after your trip. You can track a flight in real time, check exchange rates in seconds and build a personal travel map showing the countries and cities you have visited.

The problem is that there are now thousands of travel websites and apps to choose from. You don't need all of them, and no single service is the best at everything.

We've selected 12 useful travel websites that can help at different stages of a journey, from finding flights and accommodation to planning routes, tracking flights and preserving your travel memories.

1. Trailmarker - Build a Map of Your Travels and Preserve Your Memories

Trailmarker (trailmarker.app) is a free travel-mapping community where you build a personal map of everywhere you've been and turn it into something other travellers can actually use.

What you can do today:

Pin your own travel map. Drop a pin on every place you've visited — or lived — and watch your personal world map fill in.

Journal and photos inside every pin. Each pin holds its own travel journal entry and photo gallery, so the story of a trip stays attached to the place it happened.

Share with the community. Publish your photos and write long-form Travel Stories — first-hand, city-by-city accounts of what to do, where to eat, and what a place is really like.

Plan your next trip with real user content. Search Travel Stories by country, city, or keyword and plan from genuine traveller experiences instead of sponsored listicles.

Social-ready share cards. Generate share cards optimized for social media from both your maps and your Travel Stories.

Coming soon:

More community features, including connecting with people in the cities you're about to visit.

Native mobile apps for Android and iOS.

Trailmarker is free, and that's the point. It isn't a subscription funnel — the goal is to build a genuinely good travel community built on content from real travellers.

"Trailmarker is free and always meant to be. We're trying to build a real travel community — not sell subscriptions." Nikolas Wood, creator

trailmarker.app

2. Google Flights – One of the Best Tools for Finding Flights

Google Flights is one of the most useful tools for researching airfare. Its real strength isn't simply finding a particular flight, but making it easy to compare prices across different dates and destinations.

If your travel dates are flexible, its calendar and price tools can help reveal whether moving your departure by a few days could save money. Explore is also useful when you know you want to travel but haven't decided where to go.

Google Flights is best for comparing airfares, exploring flexible dates and discovering potential destinations — for more tips on finding affordable airfare, see our guide to cheap flights 2026.

3. Skyscanner – Compare Flights, Hotels and Car Rentals

Skyscanner is another classic flight comparison service. It can be useful to check it alongside Google Flights because available results and booking options can differ.

It is particularly useful when your destination or exact travel dates aren't fixed. In addition to flights, Skyscanner can be used to search for hotels and rental cars.

A sensible strategy is to compare a flight through more than one search service and then check the airline's own website before booking.

Skyscanner is best for comparing flights and flexible travellers who haven't completely decided where or when to travel.

4. Rome2Rio – Find Out How to Get From A to B

How do you get from Madrid to a small Spanish coastal town? Is it better to take a train or bus from Milan to Venice? How do you travel from the airport to your actual destination?

Rome2Rio is extremely useful for questions like these.

The service helps you understand different transportation options between an origin and destination, making it particularly useful when a journey involves several modes of transport.

Final schedules and prices should still be confirmed with the transport operator before buying tickets.

Rome2Rio is best for multi-city trips, researching public transport options and understanding complicated routes.

5. Wanderlog – Build Your Itinerary in One Place

If you want to create a detailed day-by-day itinerary, Wanderlog is worth exploring.

The service combines your itinerary and map in one interface. You can organise attractions, restaurants and other stops while seeing where everything is located.

That makes it particularly useful for city breaks and road trips where you want to visit several places in one day without wasting time travelling back and forth.

Wanderlog is best for detailed itineraries, road trips and collaborative trip planning.

6. Google Maps – Much More Than Navigation

Most travellers already know Google Maps for navigation, but one of its most useful travel features is the ability to save places.

Before travelling, you can mark your hotel, interesting restaurants, attractions, cafés, beaches and other locations. Once you arrive, your saved map effectively becomes a personal travel guide.

Maps can also help when choosing accommodation. A cheap hotel isn't necessarily a bargain if almost everything you want to see is on the opposite side of the city.

Google Maps is best for saving places, navigation and comparing the locations of hotels and attractions.

7. Booking.com – Compare Accommodation

Booking.com(Affiliate link) is one of the best-known services for searching for accommodation. In addition to hotels, it includes apartments, hostels and numerous other types of stays.

Its extensive filtering options are particularly helpful when you have specific requirements.

When reading reviews, don't look only at the overall score. Recent reviews can reveal practical details about noise, rooms, breakfast or the surrounding area.

It's also worth checking the property's own website before making the final reservation.

Booking.com is best for finding and comparing hotels and other accommodation.

8. Tripadvisor – Research Before Making the Final Choice

Tripadvisor is useful when you've narrowed your choices down and want to see what other travellers experienced.

The site contains a huge collection of traveller reviews covering hotels, restaurants, attractions and activities.

Rather than relying on a single review, look for recurring themes across multiple recent reviews. When many travellers independently mention the same advantage or problem, that information is usually more valuable.

Tripadvisor is best for researching hotels, restaurants, attractions and tours.

9. The Man in Seat 61 – An Excellent Resource for Train Travel

For travellers interested in exploring by train, The Man in Seat 61 is an exceptionally useful resource.

The website focuses on train routes, ticket booking and practical advice for rail journeys around the world. It is particularly useful for European train travel and journeys involving several countries.

Its design might not be the most modern on this list, but the depth of information makes it an excellent resource.

Seat 61 is best for European rail journeys and finding alternatives to flying.

10. XE Currency – Check Exchange Rates

When travelling outside the eurozone or your own currency area, understanding exchange rates becomes part of everyday travel.

XE's currency converter makes it easy to convert local prices and get a quick idea of what something actually costs.

Remember that the rate shown by a currency converter won't necessarily be identical to the rate offered by your bank, credit card or currency exchange.

Our own travel cost calculator estimates the daily budget for different destinations and includes a currency converter, so you can see local prices directly in euros.

XE is best for travel budgeting and quickly converting local prices.

11. Timeanddate – Keep Time Zones Under Control

Time zones seem straightforward until your trip involves daylight saving changes, connecting flights across time zones or calling home from the other side of the world.

Timeanddate's World Clock makes it easy to check local times around the world. The service also provides useful information about time zones, sunrise and sunset times.

Timeanddate is best for long-haul travel, checking time differences and trips across multiple time zones.

12. Flightradar24 – Track Flights in Real Time

Flightradar24 is popular with aviation enthusiasts, but it also has practical uses for ordinary travellers.

Its flight map allows you to follow aircraft and view flight-related information. It can be particularly handy when following an arriving flight or checking where an aircraft currently is.

Official information about gates, delays and other important travel updates should always be confirmed with the airline or airport.

Flightradar24 is best for tracking flights and travellers interested in aviation.

Bonus: Polarsteps – Record the Journey Afterwards

Not every useful travel service is focused exclusively on planning.

Polarsteps combines elements of travel planning with documenting a journey. It can be used to record your route and preserve experiences from your trip.

The result is a visual record of your journey that you can revisit later.

Polarsteps is best for documenting longer trips, recording routes and preserving travel memories.

Which Travel Website Should You Use?

There isn't one perfect travel website. A better approach is to combine a handful of useful services at different stages of your journey.

Compare flights with Google Flights and Skyscanner, research connections with Rome2Rio, compare accommodation with Booking.com, and save interesting places in Google Maps.

For more complicated journeys, Wanderlog can help organise a day-by-day itinerary. Rail travellers can turn to Seat 61, while XE and Timeanddate solve smaller but common practical problems.

During your journey, Flightradar24 can help with flight tracking. Afterwards, Trailmarker can be used to update your personal travel map and preserve your experiences as part of your travel history.

If you want more tools in your pocket, we've curated the best travel apps for 2026. And before departure, it's worth comparing travel insurance for 2026 — insurance is the one thing where the cheapest option shouldn't win automatically.

A Good Trip Doesn't Require Ten Travel Apps

When it comes to travel technology, more isn't always better. Using a different app for every part of a journey can make planning more complicated than the trip itself.

For most travellers, a handful of good tools is enough:

Flights → Google Flights + Skyscanner
Accommodation → Booking.com
Routes → Google Maps + Rome2Rio
Detailed itinerary → Wanderlog
Travel map and memories → Trailmarker

The key is to use technology as a tool rather than relying on one search engine or booking platform for everything. Compare your options, confirm important information with primary sources and leave a little room for spontaneity.

That's when travel technology does exactly what it should: make travelling easier rather than more complicated.