07 August 2025
There’s lots to think about when planning a holiday: what do you want to see, what do you need to pack, where can you go on a nice bike ride or go for a walk in a way that won’t overtax the kids – and who has paid for what during the holiday? Before you can enjoy your time away, there’s all the planning; when you get back, there are the bills. Fortunately, there’s a range of digital helpers that can make it easier for you to organise your trip.
PackPoint: What do you need to take with you?
Many people put packing off until the last moment, only to find themselves feverishly running everything through in their heads on the way to the airport. Do I really have everything with me? If you get stressed out when packing your suitcase and are prone to losing track of things, PackPoint can help. The app starts by asking when you want to go where and for how long and what you want to do when you get there: are you intending to camp, swim or work? Are you travelling with a baby? PackPoint then suggests a packing list, taking into account the weather forecast for the holiday destination, which you can edit, share with fellow travellers and tick off point by point using the app’s own widget. There is one blemish, albeit a tolerable one: the app does not automatically detect and clean up possible duplications. People who choose both swimming and time on the beach among their targeted activities will be asked in both sublists to pack swimwear and sandals. In general, the list of predefined activities is modest in scope: if you want to create your own packing lists for kitesurfing or freediving, you will have to fork out for the premium version. This also offers direct integration into the TripIt travel planner for a one-time fee of 3.19 euros.
Komoot: how are we going to get around?
Komoot is particularly popular among route planners for hikes, cycling trips and city tours. For good reason: not only can you use the app or the web version to plan your own trips, but, importantly, you can also discover routes provided by the community and the editorial team at Komoot. You will find an amazing number of beautiful routes tailored to your own requirements that you definitely wouldn’t have come across if left to your own devices. In principle, the app can also be used completely free of charge. In tandem with the purchasable map material, it’s an all-round convenient planning solution. This is because it allows you to download routes to your mobile phone and gives you access to a very good voice navigation function.
One map package for a region of your choice is available free of charge. Another regional package will cost you 8.99 euros, and the whole world will be at your disposal for 29.99 euros – and this frequently gets discounted to 19.99 euros. Komoot will also run on the smartwatches provided by Apple, Samsung and Garmin. When hiking on the Großglockner or on a tour of Rome, you don't have to have your mobile phone to hand all the time, giving you the option to save its battery for souvenir photos. The premium version, available for an annual fee of 59 euros per year, also offers you the ability to plan multi-day trips, including accommodation tips, weather forecasts for the route and 3D and sport-specific maps, plus a live tracking function so that friends and family will always know exactly where you are walking or cycling in the event of an accident. If you can live without these extras, you will be well served by the World Package and amply equipped to hit the road.
© Adobe StockLa dolce vita, but who has spent how much? The Splid app documents and calculates who owes what to whom. Particularly practical when travelling in groups.
© Katarzyna BialasiewiczOverrated and overloaded? With the PackPoint app, you can pack exactly what you need for your trip.
Wanderlog: What are we looking at?
(Almost) everything in one place: Wanderlog can be used to plan itineraries, organise flight, hotel and rental car reservations and discover sights and restaurants and display them on a map. The app and web versions also offer an autofill function to automatically create daily plans for your city trip, which you can also edit once it’s been created. You shouldn’t necessarily expect insider tips, however. If you travel to Copenhagen, for example, the usual suspects such as the Little Mermaid will be the first things worked into your daily schedule. Notwithstanding these minor grumbles, as a source of inspiration and a means to gaining a good spatial overview, Wanderlog, which draws on TripAdvisor for its suggestions, does a very good job.
A particularly practical function is that, depending on your preferred mode of transport – whether you’re going by car or on foot and by public transport – the app calculates how long it takes to get from one attraction to the next. If you click on a sight, the route to the destination will be called up on Google Maps. In the Pro version, which costs 40 euros per year, you can export all your saved locations to Google Maps, get unlimited access to an AI assistant, offline access and updates on departure delays. You can also automatically search your Gmail account for reservations and plane tickets. In the free version, you do this by using the mail forwarding function, which works surprisingly well, to send the relevant reservation confirmation to Wanderlog.
Splid: Who has paid for what?
Who paid for dinner and when, who bought the train tickets, who paid for the trip to the high ropes course, and who is now owed what by whom. Clarifying these questions takes up time on group trips and can sometimes be a bit of a mood dampener. Splid simplifies this process, thus heading off billing-related disgruntlement. Once you have created a group and invited your fellow travellers, everyone can enter their own expenses. Splid then documents how much has been spent by whom and calculates who owes how much to whom. Since the app automatically converts 150 different currencies, it will also ensure that everyone knows exactly what is happening money-wise on that major round trip through Southeast Asia, for example.
