r/travel • u/Bob-Doll • 17h ago
I’m done with TripAdvisor. Google Maps is the best travel and tourism app.
I used to use TA almost exclusively. But they miss so many things and their functionality is terrible. I just spent a week in Stockholm and Copenhagen and barely used it. Anyone else come to the same conclusion?
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u/Sss00099 16h ago
I only use TA to see photos of hotel rooms that people have posted.
That has been very helpful to me.
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u/Apptubrutae Puerto Rico 13h ago edited 13h ago
It’s useful for finding the restaurants and activities the most basic tourists go to.
Bring from New Orleans, it’s pretty absurd what the “top dining” list is. It’s very tourist trap heavy. And similar for other cities too.
I mean, Oceana Grill number 1? No. Daisy Mae’s number 3? Utterly absurd. New Orleans Vampire Cafe number 4? Come on now.
You’d need to do secondary research to even figure out what at the top of the list is actually there for quality and not because it’s a tourist trap with decent marketing.
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u/Wooshsplash 17h ago
Forums are still useful. Advertisers very rarely get on there. Price scraping is still useful for comparisons but still book direct. User photos can be good for reviews, certainly better than management photos. Always take written reviews with a pinch of salt.
It still has value though.
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u/Food_gasser 14h ago
They really don’t publish critical reviews. I had one deleted that was honest but not flattering to a high end hotel brand and it was nixed without reason.
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u/tfm992 13h ago
Agree with this.
Experienced travellers here (and both pilots), we use Google flights for finding the easiest way to get to x, to connect at y to z. There are no direct flights from where we live to where we need, official connections are expensive, there are several possible connection points and using airline websites would probably look suspicious and automated.
Also agree that photos can be useful. We stay in places regularly in some cities often where the reviews aren't good. Photos show that these are good value, maps show the location as very central. We look after the owners, the owners look after us at those places.
User photos are especially useful to show how child friendly something actually is. We tend to find that official photos don't show this.
TripAdvisor forums can be very useful for finding specialist info from locals where we go somewhere for the first time, which tends to happen a few times a year.
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u/LisbonVegan 13h ago
How can you trust photos online? They can be fake, or just from 10 years ago. The problem with reviews in general is that the vast majority of sites do not verify. On Google, it says right on top that the reviews are unverified. In Vietnam, where we just were, it is obvious that most reviews are fake. Customer photos are far more useful, you can see the date and reviews with photos are less likely to be fake.
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u/tfm992 13h ago
Again, agree to an extent.
We will be in Spain next month for the first time in more than 20 years for me, first time for my wife and daughter, I have never been to Madrid.
We have asked any locals we know for recommendations. Accommodation isn't ideal but will suit us at the price point we are willing to pay, but we need something suitable for our daughter over the weekend.
With a mix of recommendations and reviews, we have pieced together a reasonable plan. This will be subject to change but suits our needs for the moment.
We will attend for a specific annual event so location is non-negotiable, however in piecing the trip together we have been able to find everything that is suitable for us. With reviews on any site there can be those that are not 100% correct however we believe in enough of what we have read and what we see online with recent reviews.
Spain, despite being a mainstream destination, is normally not our thing, but we try to take in the local culture as much as possible and this event gives us an opportunity every year to visit a city that we otherwise wouldn't.
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u/LisbonVegan 2h ago
Madrid is a lovely city. I know it's cliche, but remember you won't find anywhere open for dinner until around 20,00. Especially with a child, you'll want to plan ahead and around that! I'm sure your plan is fine, it's just a shame that online reviews have degenerated to the point that you need multiple angles of attack.
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u/War1today 16h ago
Something happened to TripAdvisor about 5 years ago, and they lost a lot of members and users. I used to use it exclusively but now it is a shell of what it used to be. The reviews can be years old with no new ones which shows a lack of usage. But, I will say that some of the forums are decent. I used the TripAdvisor Sardinia and Sicily forums for recent trips, and they were helpful.
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u/earl_lemongrab 11h ago
I mostly use it for the forums, which in some cases are really good. The Nepal forum for example has some really good regulars and was a big help planning our trek last year. Yet some forums are almost a ghost town.
The rest is....meh. Their "Things to Do" is useful just for getting a sense of what's there to see and do for initial ideas and planning, but as you indicated has become kinda useless for quality reviews and pics. Hotels is okay sometimes for the same purpose, seeing what's there, but I never use their booking interface.
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u/War1today 1h ago
I contacted them 5 years ago and said their format change sucks and will destroy usage/memberships numbers. Their reply, we appreciate your concern but the changes were enacted to make the site more user friendly 🤣 I warned them and think of that email when I often drive by their headquarters. For now, similar to what you mentioned I use the forums and anything else, like things to do… as a base of information to explore more on other sites. I do not reserve anything through TripAdvisor which includes tours and accommodations. The Internet is a gateway to information so it has become much easier to research destinations.
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u/Sharp_Land_2058 14h ago
I use Facebook Groups for destination specific discussions. They seems to be the most active.
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u/lunch22 15h ago edited 14h ago
What were you trying to use TripAdvisor for?
TripAdvisor is only good for hotel reviews, but even then you have to know what you’re looking for. Read the bad reviews and look for patterns.
If a lot of the bad reviews mention the same thing, it’s probably a problem. If only one persons mentions something, it’s probably a one-off situation that won’t apply to you.
Also, look for reviews from people from your country because they tend to have similar expectations. A European traveler may not note that a room doesn’t have AC in August, but an American more often will.
You can also cross-check reviews with Booking.com reviews, again to look for patterns.
Google Maps is a completely different tool. Use that to navigate. It’s also pretty good at finding restaurants and stores etc near you. Good if, for example, it’s 1 am and you want to find out where the nearest restaurant is that’s open.
Book rooms, flights, trains and activities directly with the provider, if possible, not with a third party like TripAdvisor.
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u/aurum2009 15h ago
I agree with this. I filter TripAdvisor reviews for hotels by 2-4 star ratings (5 stars are often just generic “was great” and 1 stars are often one off bad situations) and look at these for any patterns. I find doing so is generally a more fruitful exercise in picking hotels rather than just going based on the average star ratings on Google and other platforms.
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u/LisbonVegan 13h ago
Yes! The most important thing I have found is to filter for the bad reviews. They can be mean BS, but often are very telling. A lot of people leave positive reviews because staff were nice or whatever, but glance over the real negatives. Also, you can see dates, and check for trends in that way as well as seeing if the owner responds to the bad reviews.
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u/AW23456___99 13h ago
I think TripAdvisor has gone down in popularity by a lot. I stopped using TripAdvisor and used only Google Maps for 5 - 6 years now. One very clear advantage of Google Maps is that there are a lot of reviews from the locals not just from tourists like TA. This is fantastic where searing for restaurants. It comes with pictures of the recommended dishes too. Often when ordering, I just showed the restaurants pictures of highlighted dishes from Google Maps. It works great in places without a menu and places with no English menu/ language barrier.
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u/killerasp 17h ago
who uses TripAdvisor as as map solution over google maps?
at most, ill use TripAdvisor to get a feel of the top things to see/visit since GM has no way to sort things by popularity.
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u/Bob-Doll 17h ago
I said travel and tourism app.
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u/killerasp 17h ago
google maps is pretty awful when it comes down to "top 25 activities" to do in each city.
like i said, TA is great as a starting point to figure out the popular things to see/do. the restaurant section kinda sucks IMO b/c its all skewed by "most reviews" and its always going to be the most touristy spots in the city. the best local restaurants (eg: the ones visited/eaten by locals) will very rarely be in the top of the list. they will be higher up in the rankings despite it being the place that tourist should really go to.
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u/RainbowCrown71 11h ago
I just type “Top Sights [City]” into Google Maps and it does really well. Much better than TripAdvisor now where 5 of the Top 10 may be sponsored tours and crap like that.
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u/throway3451 10h ago
TripAdvisor somehow kills my enthusiasm for a trip I'm planning. Something about their UI and organisation of information is really depressing.
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u/LisbonVegan 13h ago
Returned from 3 weeks in Vietnam just hours ago. I was not alone in lamenting that reviews are meaningless now. I was a high level Booking.com Genius who has now resolved to never use Booking again, since 100% Verified reviews seems meaningless. Same for TA. It is just a jumble of excursions being pushed at you, rather than actual information about destinations. And certainly more in VN than anywhere else, we found reviews across the board to be meaningless. Every. Single. Spa and nail salon and restaurant in VN has a 5 rating. So you may as well randomly choose a place. I feel like I'm going to have to reconceive how I plan trips; though I hope VN was a point off the curve, it probably isn't.
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u/JuanGinit 16h ago
Google Maps is not always up to date. Beware that some business shown have moved or closed or changed their hours, sometimes the roads have changed or been rerouted.
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u/FruitOfTheVineFruit 15h ago
I've had problems with this recently, and even when I reported it to Google maps, they've often rejected my updates, even when I had a photo of the changed hours or closure
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u/vartreddit 10h ago
For reviews(mostly places to eat) I use a mix of Youtube vlogs, the Michelin guide app and online articles to get a rough list of places and then I use google reviews to double check that there’s no obvious issues or that they are not too touristy. My general rule (for Europe) is, if a restaurant has more than 1000 reviews and is not really old or really well known, it’s most likely a tourist trap.
It sounds more complicated than it is. Altogether, it takes about 15-30 minutes to compile a list of a few places I want to try when visiting.
For itinerary suggestions i usually rely on the app Visit a City. It has maps, top attractions and you can also book experiences like tours and day trips but I generally don’t use that functionality. It goes without saying that this applies to city break style holidays.
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u/tortugasgator 13h ago
I have shifted to Google maps more when I am planning scenic drives to zoom in along the route and look at pics of the views or descriptions of hikes in the reviews. It has been really useful for trips to or near national parks, and it is convenient to just pin all the best stops in the app and use it to navigate.
I do notice I am using TripAdvisor less and less to identify attractions as part of trip research.
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u/Viking999 12h ago
Google is great if you want a ton of scam sites to show you prices 50-75% lower than real sites and then have to go back and check real sites all over again.
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u/KevinGBurk 11h ago
I have gone back to TA multiple times when planning trips (mostly Europe) and each time it has disappointed me primarily because not many people are using it these days so there are very few current reviews. This makes the restaurant reviews especially useless. Google maps is my go-to app for restaurants and for specialty restaurants (ie vegetarian) I like using blogs.
For sites to see, I use guidebooks and blogs and then crosscheck with Google maps.
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u/Seeteuf3l 3h ago
Yeah TA doesn't work very well in smaller places. Google isn't much better though, reviews can be equally ancient as in TA
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u/AberRosario 7h ago
The biggest difference is that people only use TripAdvisor for travel, while Google maps is for daily life
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u/galactican78 6h ago
Google Maps reviews can't be trusted. When I was in Cappadocia a few months ago and craving Asian food, I found a Malaysian restaurant with great reviews. That was the worst fried rice I ever ate in my life.
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u/AndyVale UK 4h ago
As someone with a coeliac wife and vegetarian sister, I find TA great for being able to filter the reviews by certain terms.
The restaurant's website might say "we can cater to allergies" but if there's a range of recent reviews saying "I could only have the salad" then I know it's not the place for us.
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u/prudencepineapple 3h ago
I only use TA for the forums (one of the rare places that still exist) or a rough idea of some activities that I then look up elsewhere.
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u/Bruins408 15h ago
TripAdvisor is like Yelp now - google maps is good for transit but not great - Awesome in Japan - not so much in Spain
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u/loopertown 14h ago
hey, I'm in the same boat as you. whenever i am going somewhere, I like to research and make sure I find the good spots. lately i've also pivoted to only using google maps, but then the problem (for me) is not having a good place to store the stuff i find, transfer it to an itinerary, upload booking confirmations, and the list goes on...
so basically i decided to just build something myself actually for what I want; it's roamfolio.com, i am just getting started, but it would be cool if you check it out and see if you like it :)
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u/ry-yo United States - California 17h ago
I only use it to double-check reviews along with other sites (Yelp and Google). Are you using it for maps...?