The best AI trip planner and packing list apps compared, and a trip planned by every expert who knows you

Why most AI trip planners fall short

Most AI trip planners plan the place, not you. Ask for three days in Lisbon and you’ll get a good list of what to see and where to eat, in a sensible order. It’s the same list anyone else would get, whatever you loved last time, and it stops at the airport.

What makes a trip go well usually lives somewhere else. You’re flat after travelling, so a big dinner on the night you land is a mistake. Your usual moisturiser feels heavy in the heat. You already own two pairs of sandals that would go. A trip planner that can’t see those things plans a trip for someone else.

And a trip is more than the days away. It starts weeks before, with your passport, the packing, the fridge and an early night, and it carries on after, when you get home late on a Sunday to an empty kitchen. Our guide to AI planner apps covers your days, occasions and trips together; this one goes deeper on trips.

What a good AI trip planner knows

• Your bookings and documents. The flights, the stay and the tables, and when your passport runs out, without you copying them in.
• The place and the forecast. Where you’ll be each day, and the weather when you’re there, not just the season.
• How you travel. A quiet first day or straight out, how much you like to pack, and what you enjoyed most last time.
• What you own. Your clothes, your shoes and your skincare, so packing starts from your wardrobe, not a shop.
• Your body and your routines. Your training plan, how you recover and how you sleep before an early start.
• Who you’re going with. What they eat, what they like, and what they’ve already planned.
• Home. The fridge, the plants, the deliveries and your week when you’re back.

What it should do for you

Knowing all that only helps if it turns into a better trip. A good AI trip planner should:

• Suggest what you’ll love, and turn your bookings into days that suit you rather than anyone.
• Pack from what you own, for the forecast and for what you’ll actually be doing.
• Get you and your home ready: your documents, your routine, your training, the fridge and an early night.
• Keep you on time, and replan when something changes, moving only what the change affects.
• Ask before anything reaches another person, or before it spends money you haven’t agreed to.
• Learn from every trip, so the next one needs less from you.

The top AI trip planner apps at a glance

We looked at six apps that people use to plan and pack for trips: three AI trip planners, Google’s Gemini, a booking organiser and a packing list app. They’re a selection by reach and relevance, not a ranking, and they do quite different jobs.

App by app

Wanderlog

Cost

Free; Pro listed from $5.99 a month

Where

iPhone, iPad, Android, web

App Store

4.9 from 36K ratings

Wanderlog says more than a million people have tried it. Its AI trip planner suggests places to see and eat, puts your route in a sensible order and drafts an itinerary, and an AI assistant answers questions as you plan. Around that sits a full planning app: one map, budgets and bill splitting, real-time planning with friends, flight status, offline access and a packing checklist. Forward your booking emails, or with Pro let it scan your Gmail. Its 21 October 2026 update turns a pasted link or a shared reel into an itinerary.

Worth knowingIts suggestions lean on popular, well-reviewed places; remembering what you enjoyed on past trips isn’t mentioned. The packing checklist is one you create and manage yourself, so it doesn’t know your clothes or the forecast. When you connect Gmail, it uses OpenAI to find your travel receipts, deletes the rest and doesn’t use Gmail for ads, though its policy separately allows advertising cookies. How it treats AI chats isn’t mentioned.

Mindtrip

Cost

Free, with no in-app purchases listed

Where

iPhone, web

App Store

4.7 from 848 ratings

Mindtrip calls itself an “AI Travel Companion” and says it’s “totally free”. Ask it anything and it suggests where to stay, eat and explore for your “vibe”, maps your route, and turns inspiration from articles, videos, photos or Google Maps into a trip plan. You can plan with friends in group chats and shared itineraries, translate signs and menus with its camera, and keep your trip offline. Its 1 October 2026 update made it a personal travel assistant that “can remember what matters to you, learn as you go”, with “agents” that watch what matters to you and report back, flight price alerts, and “more restaurants the assistant can just book on your behalf”. An earlier update improved searching for and buying flights and hotels.

Worth knowingOf the six, it says the most about learning how you travel, but what it learns is about travel: your clothes, your skin, your training and your week at home aren’t mentioned, and nor is packing. We didn’t find an Android app on Google Play. Its App Store privacy label lists precise location, contact details and photos or videos among the data linked to you. Whether your chats are used to train AI isn’t covered in the sources we could check.

Layla

Cost

Free to download; Premium $9.99 a month or $49.99 a year

Where

iPhone, iPad, Mac, Android, web

App Store

4.6 from 213 ratings

Layla describes itself as “your personal AI travel agent that helps you discover, plan, and book amazing trips”, all “just by chatting”. Its website pairs the AI planning with a real travel adviser who checks and books the trip. Its 20 October 2026 update shows destinations on a map and in a feed you swipe through, and adds a profile of “your travel style, interests and the places you’ve been”. Premium gives you “unlimited access”. It’s also on Google Play.

Worth knowingIt’s AI with a person behind the booking, not an AI that books on its own, so check what the adviser does for you and what you pay for. Layla is now part of Expedia Group, which bought it on 31 July 2026. Packing, your calendar and your life at home aren’t mentioned. Its App Store privacy label lists location, contact details and search history among the data linked to you.

Google Gemini

Cost

Free; optional Google AI plans

Where

iPhone, Android, web

App Store

4.7 from 2.4M ratings

Gemini isn’t a travel app, but Google promotes it as an AI trip planner. Google says it pulls live information from Google Maps, Flights and Hotels to build an itinerary, groups things to do by neighbourhood, and can help you book tours through the Viator app. With Personal Intelligence on, it draws on Gmail, Photos, Search and YouTube, such as restaurants from food photos you’ve saved and bookings already in your Gmail, and it can remember your interests and past picks. Its Spark agent can watch your Gmail and build your itinerary in a Google Doc, compare hire cars, draft a packing list, and fill in an airline’s booking form for you to finish by pressing “book”.

Worth knowingMuch depends on where you live and what you pay. Personal Intelligence is for personal accounts, 18 and over, and Google currently excludes the UK, the EEA, Switzerland and Nigeria. Spark launched in May 2026 as a beta for Google AI Ultra subscribers in the US, which is listed at $199.99 on the App Store. Its packing list is research, not your wardrobe. Gemini has its own privacy rules: chats and connected data can help improve Google’s models, with some human review, and activity is kept for 18 months by default.

TripIt

Cost

Free; Pro $48.99 a year

Where

iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Android, web

App Store

4.8 from 312K ratings

TripIt says nearly 20 million travellers use it. Book a flight, hotel or hire car, forward the confirmation to [email protected] or connect your inbox, and it adds it to one itinerary, with maps, directions and your documents, even offline, and a feed to your Apple or Google calendar. Pro adds real-time flight alerts and check-in reminders, warnings when a disruption may affect your trip, a heads-up when a fare drop makes you eligible for a refund, airport maps and alerts when points are about to expire.

Worth knowingIt organises the trip you’ve already booked: planning your days, packing and rebooking aren’t mentioned, and it doesn’t describe a conversational AI. It’s part of SAP Concur, and its privacy policy says it uses travel emails to develop its extraction models. Email from a connected inbox isn’t used to target ads, and it says it doesn’t sell your data. A calendar-feed link shows your travel to anyone you share it with.

PackPoint

Cost

Free; Premium $2.99

Where

iPhone, Mac, Android

App Store

4.7 from 2.5K ratings

PackPoint calls itself “an intelligent packing app”. Tell it where you’re going, when and for how many nights, whether it’s for work or leisure and what you’ll be doing, and it builds your packing list, with warm- or cold-weather clothes from the forecast and an umbrella if rain is due. It says more than two million packing lists are made with it each year. Premium connects to TripIt to make your lists automatically, lets you add your own activities and items, and shares a list with the people you’re travelling with.

Worth knowingIt doesn’t call itself AI, and it packs for a kind of trip rather than from your own clothes: it knows you need warm-weather clothes, not which of yours. Learning from what you actually used isn’t mentioned. Its privacy policy says it doesn’t collect your precise location and sends diagnostic reports to Sentry, and a shared list can be opened by anyone with its link.

Where Retenna goes further on trips

Retenna isn’t a travel app. It’s every lifestyle expert in one mind that knows you, and your planner is one of them, with a full space of its own and the tools of a dedicated trip planner, and more:

• Suggestions for where to go, and what to see, do and eat there, from what you enjoyed on past trips.
• Trip itineraries, with your travel, your stay and the places you’ll go, built from the bookings you choose to share, and shared with the people you’re going with.
• Flight alerts and travel reminders: delays, gate changes, check-in and when to leave for the airport, plus passport, visa and travel-document reminders well before you go.
• Packing lists, from what you already own, for the forecast and for what you’ll be doing.
• A timeline of your days, with your to-dos, goals, habits and routines planned around the trip, before and after.

And because every expert shares one living model of you, a booking becomes an itinerary, a packing list, outfits for the forecast and training that fits the trip. Here’s how the six compare with what Retenna is built to do.

Yes

The maker documents it.

Partly

A narrower version. TripIt: an itinerary from bookings you’ve made. Wanderlog: stays booked in the app, and flight status without check-in reminders. Mindtrip: flight price alerts, and changes when you ask. Layla: a profile of your travel style. Gemini: Gmail bookings only with Personal Intelligence (not in the UK or EEA), booking forms for you to finish, what you ask it to remember, changes when you ask, and a packing list or shared itinerary from its Spark beta. PackPoint: bookings through TripIt, your own default items, weather clothes rather than your clothes, and a shared list.

–Dash

Not mentioned in the maker’s own materials. That doesn’t prove it can’t.

The top rows are where the trip apps are strong: four of the six suggest places, and Mindtrip now remembers how you travel. The lower rows are the difference. None of the six mentions passport reminders, packing from your own clothes, your routine for the climate, or training and meals around the trip. Wardrobe apps such as Alta, Acloset and Whering do pack from your clothes (see our stylist guide), but they don’t plan the trip. Retenna is built to do all of it as one plan.

One trip, planned by every expert

It’s a Monday, 18 days before a long weekend in Lisbon with Alex. You fly out at 07:40 on Friday and back on Sunday evening. You shared the booking emails, so your flights and hotel are already in your itinerary. Here’s what the rest of Retenna does with them.

What it ruled outDinner out on the night you land, because you’re flat after travelling. Leg day on Thursday, because you’re sore for two days after it and Friday is a day on your feet. New sandals, because you own two pairs that go. Your rich cream, because it feels heavy on you in the heat.

Weeks ahead, it plans the trip and gets your week ready for it:

In the days before you go, it gets you and your bag ready:

Eleven notes from eight experts, and only three need you: a new restaurant, new spending and two people. Everything else is simply done, with its reason and an Undo. The same trip appears in our beauty and grooming guide, from your routine’s side.

When plans change, and when you’re home

Trips don’t stay still. Your stylist checks the forecast again before you leave, in case anything has changed. On Thursday morning, it has.

Thursday 07:00 · Rain is now forecast for all of SaturdaySaturday’s run and walk, and some of what’s packed, don’t suit the day any more. Retenna plays the trip out again and moves only what the rain affects.

The flights, the hotel, Saturday’s table and your routine for the heat stay exactly as they were. One change, three updates, and only one of them needs you. Then, at 04:50 on Friday, your flight changes too:

And the trip doesn’t end at the airport. When you land late on Sunday, the rest of your week is already waiting:

The trip jobs it takes off your hands

Each is one of your experts doing its own job, with a guide of its own: your stylist, beauty and grooming expert, personal trainer, nutritionist and personal shopper. On a trip, they work from the same plan.

How it learns how you travel, trip after trip

Everything Retenna knows sits in one living model of you, shared by every expert. It learns from what you do, what you choose and what you tell it. Over a few trips, it builds up the things you’d never think to tell a travel app, but that decide whether a trip goes well:

• You’re flat after travelling. So the first day away is a light one, and so is your first run back.
• Your rich cream feels heavy on you in the heat. So hot trips get the gel moisturiser.
• You swapped suede for leather the last time it rained. So rain on the forecast means leather.
• Museums were the best part of your last two city breaks. So Lisbon starts at the tile museum.
• The third pair of shoes came home unworn. So next time, two pairs go in the case.

The more it learns, the less it needs to ask:

1. Day oneIt asks. A weekend in Lisbon: what did you enjoy most last time, what would you like on the first day, and how do you like to get to the airport? You choose, and it remembers.
2. Within weeksIt suggests. “The tile museum on Saturday, a light first day, and the gel moisturiser for the heat?” One tap, and the trip is planned.
3. In timeIt decides the way you would, further ahead. The trip is planned, packed and your week rearranged around it, each with its reason.

And it keeps learning. Every place you love or skip, every outfit you wear or leave in the case, and every plan you keep, change or undo tells it a little more about how you like to travel.

How you shape it, and stay in charge

Your rules, in your own wordsYou choose what it simply does and tells you about after, and what waits for your yes. To start with, your own plans and places you’ve used before are done for you, anywhere new and new spending ask first, and anything that involves another person always asks first. That’s why three things in the Lisbon plan waited for you: the new restaurant, the £9 of SPF, and anything that reached Alex or Tom. The rest was simply done:

Change a rule, and your trip changes with it: say yes to the shoe rule, and your stylist checks the shoes with you before it packs.

A reason and an Undo, every timeEvery plan says why, and every plan can be undone. Undo a change, and it learns from that too.

See, change or forget what it knowsYour living model is yours to read: “You’re flat after travelling”, from your last few trips. Change it or forget it, and it stops planning around it. You can see, correct, export or delete what Retenna holds about you, including anything it has learned.

How to choose

If you want one part of a trip done well, one of these will do it, and some do it for free. If you want the whole trip planned around the rest of your life, that’s Retenna.

For one part of the trip, done well

• WanderlogPlanning a trip’s days, route and budget, with friendsIts packing checklist is one you write yourself.
• MindtripA free AI travel companion that remembers how you like to travel, and books some restaurants for youOn iPhone and the web.
• LaylaPlanning by chat, with a real adviser who checks and books the trip
• Google GeminiItineraries from Google Maps, Flights and Hotels, if your life is already in Google’s appsIts most personal features aren’t in the UK or the EEA.
• TripItEvery booking in one itinerary, with flight alerts in Pro
• PackPointA quick packing list from the weather, the length of your trip and what you’ll doOr a wardrobe app such as Alta or Acloset, to pack from your own clothes.

For a trip planned around your whole life

What to check before you trust one with your trip

• Who does the booking. Layla pairs its AI with a real adviser who checks and books, and is now part of Expedia Group. Mindtrip lets you buy flights and hotels, and books some restaurants for you. Gemini fills in a booking form for you to press “book”. Know who you’re paying, and who to call if it goes wrong.
• Your inbox. TripIt and Wanderlog can read booking emails from a connected inbox, and Gemini can with Personal Intelligence. TripIt uses travel emails to develop its extraction models; Wanderlog uses OpenAI to find travel receipts and deletes the rest. Retenna lets you choose: share just the emails you pick, or connect your inbox.
• Training. Gemini’s chats and connected data can help improve Google’s models, with some human review. For Mindtrip and Layla, it isn’t covered in the sources we could check. Look for a clear answer, and a way to say no.
• Sharing. A TripIt calendar-feed link shows your travel to anyone who has it, and a shared PackPoint list opens for anyone with its link. Take care with your passport details and your dates away from home.
• Where it works. Gemini’s Personal Intelligence currently excludes the UK, the EEA, Switzerland and Nigeria, and Spark is a beta for paid plans that started in the US. We didn’t find Mindtrip on Google Play.

How Retenna plans your trips

Questions

Sources

Checked 23 October 2026. Ratings and prices are from Apple’s US App Store; everything else is from each maker’s own pages, and Layla’s new owner from Expedia Group’s announcement.

• Wanderlog: App Store, AI trip planner, mobile app, privacy policy
• Mindtrip: App Store, with its version history and privacy label
• Layla: App Store, Google Play, website, Expedia Group’s announcement
• Google Gemini: App Store, AI trip planner, how Gemini plans trips, release notes, Personal Intelligence, Gemini privacy
• TripIt: App Store, calendar feeds, privacy policy, privacy help
• PackPoint: website, App Store, privacy policy
• ChatGPT: App Store

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