Wanderlog vs TripIt

Wanderlog and TripIt solve different problems, which is why the question of which one to use keeps coming up. Wanderlog is a planner. You build each day on a map, and the people you are traveling with edit the plan alongside you. TripIt is a keeper. You forward confirmation emails and it files them into an itinerary, with a paid tier that watches your flights.

If your trip starts with "what should we do on Tuesday", pick Wanderlog. If it starts with a stack of booking emails, pick TripIt. If your bookings arrive by email and you also plan with other people, neither fits cleanly, and that gap is where Whimbrel sits.

The short answer

• Pick Wanderlog if you plan your days on a map, you road trip, or you want friends editing the same itinerary live. The free plan covers that. Pro adds Google Maps export and a Gmail link.
• Pick TripIt if you fly a lot and want every confirmation filed without typing anything. The free plan does the filing. Pro, at $49 a year, adds flight status alerts, alternate flights, and seat tracking.
• Look at Whimbrel if your bookings arrive by email and you travel with other people. Forward a confirmation or connect an inbox, and every booking lands on the right day. Co-planners and watchers see the same timeline. It is free today, and Whimbrel Pro is coming.

Wanderlog vs TripIt side by side

Whimbrel is in the third column so you can see where it fits. It is not first, and where it does less, the table says so.

	Wanderlog	TripIt	Whimbrel
Paid plan	Pro, $39.99 a year or $5.99 a month	Pro, $49 a year, 30-day trial	Free today. Whimbrel Pro is coming.
What the free plan does	Map-based day planning, live collaboration, forward confirmation emails, plans stored offline	Itinerary from forwarded emails, inbox sync, sharing, calendar sync	Everything on the site
Forward a confirmation email	Yes	Yes, to plans@tripit.com	Yes, to your private address
Connect an inbox	Gmail, on Pro	Gmail, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Outlook.com, Yahoo	Gmail, Outlook, Fastmail, or any IMAP inbox
Map and route planning	Yes, the core of the app	No	No
Planning with other people	Live editing, like a shared document	Share plans with other people	Co-planners and read-only watchers, shared link
Real-time flight status alerts	No	Pro	No
Told when a booking changes	Not listed	Pro, through Flight Status	Yes, from the email that changed it
Offline access	Plans stored in the app; offline maps are Pro	Yes, while the app stays signed in	Read-only view of the itinerary
Calendar sync	Not listed	Yes	Yes, a feed for Apple, Google, or Outlook Calendar
Shared expenses	Yes, with bill splitting	Not listed	Yes, opt-in per trip, with receipt scanning
Works with Claude or ChatGPT	Not listed	Not listed	Yes, over MCP
Platforms	iPhone, Android, web	iPhone, Android, web, watch	Web and any phone browser; iPhone and Android apps in beta

Prices checked on October 16, 2026, on tripit.com and the US App Store listing for Wanderlog. "Not listed" means the company's site and store listing did not mention the feature that day, not that it is missing.

How each app gets your bookings in

This is the part most comparisons skip, and it is the part that decides which app you will still be using in six months.

TripIt is built around forwarding. Send a confirmation to plans@tripit.com from the address on your account and the flight, hotel, or car shows up in the right trip. Inbox Sync goes a step further and reads new confirmations from a connected Gmail, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Outlook.com, or Yahoo address without any forwarding. Both are on the free plan.

Wanderlog also accepts forwarded confirmations, and that is free. Linking your Gmail account so Wanderlog reads new bookings on its own is a Pro feature. Either way, the booking lands in a trip you are already planning on the map, which is the point: Wanderlog assumes you are planning first and attaching bookings second.

Whimbrel starts from the email. Forward a confirmation to your private Whimbrel address, or connect Gmail, Outlook, Fastmail, or any inbox over IMAP, and an assistant reads the message, pulls out the dates, times, places, and confirmation numbers, and files each one on the right day of the trip. It creates the trip if there is not one yet. You can edit or undo anything it adds, and nothing is ever sent from your account. The how it works page walks through a trip from the first email.

A detail that matters if you are coming from one of the other articles on this question: Wanderlog does import bookings from email. Some comparisons say it needs manual entry. The listing is clear that forwarding is free and the Gmail link is Pro.

What the paid plans actually buy

TripIt Pro is $49 a year after a 30-day trial. The feature list on tripit.com, in its own words: Seat Tracker, Fare Tracker, Check-in Reminder, Point Tracker, Inner Circle, International Travel Tools, Passport Renewal Reminder, Documents, Flight Status, Alternate Flights, Go Now, Risk Alerts, Interactive Maps, Terminal and Gate Reminder, Connecting Flights, and Baggage Claim Info. Four of those carry the subscription for frequent flyers: Flight Status tells you about delays and cancellations before the airline does, Alternate Flights finds you another seat when a flight falls apart, Seat Tracker watches for the seat you wanted, and Terminal and Gate Reminder saves you a check of the departures board. If you fly a handful of times a year, the free plan is the whole product.

Wanderlog Pro is $39.99 a year or $5.99 a month in the US App Store. The listing names two things Pro unlocks: exporting your trip to Google Maps and linking your Gmail account. Reviews of the app also credit Pro with route optimization and offline maps. The parts most people come to Wanderlog for, the map, the day-by-day plan, and live editing with friends, are free.

Whimbrel is free today. Whimbrel Pro is coming for people with many trips a year or many people per trip, and everything you build now comes with you. We say that plainly because a comparison that hides it is not much of a comparison. There is no date and no price to report yet, and this page will say both when there are. The features page lists everything Whimbrel does right now.

Planning a trip with other people

Wanderlog is the strongest of the three here, and it is not close for map planning. Invite people by email or share a link, set whether each person can edit or only view, and everyone works on the same itinerary at the same time, the way a shared document works. For a group that wants to argue over which neighborhood to stay in, that is the right tool.

TripIt shares plans rather than planning them. You can send a trip or a single plan to other people by text, email, or the app, and TripIt makes it easy to let family know where you are. What it does not do is give a second person a place to add the dinner they booked.

Whimbrel sits between the two. Share a trip with the people you are traveling with as fellow planners, who can forward their own bookings and add to the itinerary, or as read-only watchers. Publish a read-only link when a parent or a colleague just needs the dates. Turn on expenses for the trip and everyone logs what they paid, with a receipt photo filling in the amount and currency. Each traveler can have their own arrival and departure dates on the same trip, so a shared itinerary stays accurate for the person who joins on day three.

Where each one falls short

Wanderlog treats bookings as a side feature. The map is the product, and if you do not plan on a map, you are using a small corner of it. There is no flight monitoring, and the Gmail link that would make it hands-off is behind Pro.

TripIt has no planning layer. It will keep your bookings in perfect order and tell you nothing about what to do between them. The alerts that make it worth paying for are all in Pro, so the free plan is a filing cabinet, a good one. Sharing is one-way.

Whimbrel does not track flight status, seats, or fares in real time. It will tell you when a forwarded email reschedules or cancels a booking, and it reminds you before a free cancellation deadline passes, but it does not watch the airline's feed. There is no map route planner. The iPhone and Android apps are in beta, so most people use it in a browser today. If TripIt Pro's airport tools are the reason you pay, Whimbrel is not a replacement yet, and we would rather say that here than have you find out at the gate.

Which one to try first

Start with whichever matches the first thing you do when you plan a trip. If you open a map, start with Wanderlog. If you open your inbox, start with TripIt, or start a trip on Whimbrel by forwarding one booking and see where it lands. The FAQ covers what Whimbrel reads, what it never does with your mail, and how sharing works.