11 TripAdvisor Alternatives to Help You Plan Your Next Vacation

TripAdvisor is perhaps the most comprehensive booking website I know of. I am able to book flights, hotels, and even learn what to do in certain places I go to. Although I’ve heard of other booking websites, I haven’t actually tried them, except for Expedia. But I was able to scroll through some of them to see how much they differ from what is deemed the number one in the game.

With that, here are TripAdvisor alternatives I recommend you should check.

Booking a trip

As a long-time Expedia customer, I have a vested interest in the trip booking lists. However, for the sake of this post, I checked the price of a round-trip (non-stop) ticket from Vancouver to Maui on November 3, 2018, and returned on November 10, 2018. I also looked at pricing at the Honua Kai Resort for a two-bedroom partial-ocean-view condo (my absolute favorite Maui resort because of the great 2 and 3 bedroom accommodation that is great for groups of friends and families). Each booking provider generates different pricing, which I laid out. On September 21, 2018, we verified prices.

Please keep in mind that a single flight price comparison does not always imply the best or cheapest service. It was just for the sake of illustration that I did it.

Flight and hotel prices via TripAdvisor:

$519 CAD for a non-stop trip from Vancouver, British Columbia to Maui, Hawaii.

Merely gives a list of different providers, such as Otel, Priceline, and HotelQuickly, for a cost per night for a two-bedroom suite at Honua Kai.

Expedia

My preferred method of booking trips is via Expedia. I just booked a hotel in Bellingham, Washington, and was delighted to see that I had accumulated enough Expedia Rewards to make the room free. While not lavish, it was a Best Western that would have cost me a little more than $100.

Expedia, thank you. In addition, I usually book all that via my American Express card, which allows me to earn a lot of points for my travels.

Expedia is yet another complete vacation planning service that can assist with flight booking, hotel reservations, and attraction discovery.

$519 CAD for a non-stop trip from Vancouver, British Columbia to Maui, Hawaii.

Honua Kai charges $610/night CAD for a two-bedroom suite.

Expedia’s advantages are as follows:

• Expedia has a good search engine for finding cheap flights. Expedia allows you to search for flights and book them straight on the site.
• Expedia provides a variety of package deals that enable you to make a reservation, purchase an airline ticket, and hire a vehicle all at the same time.
• I like using the itinerary system since it allows me to immediately view all of my forthcoming trip plans.
• It’s simple to book your journey after you’ve set up your account with payment information.
• I reside in Canada, therefore all travel reservations are reported in Canadian dollars, which is wonderful since it lets me know how much my travels will cost in my own currency.

Expedia’s flaws:

• Expedia lacks TripAdvisor’s comprehensive review system. While Expedia has some testimonials, it’s not the website’s primary focus, and the quantity of reviews for any individual property is often far fewer.
• Expedia is free to use, however depending on the product, a service fee may be charged when booking reservations.

Booking.com (“Booking”)

Booking.com is a great place to look for non-chain hotels and accommodations. The website lists nearly two million inns, hotels, pensions, motels, bed & breakfasts, as well as hostels from all around the globe, making it a useful tool for travel planning.

A non-stop trip from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Maui, Hawaii, costs $511 Canadian dollars.

Honua Kai charges $675/night for a two-bedroom apartment (CAD)

Pros of Booking

• Booking has the largest directory of hotels and resorts on the internet. If you’re planning a vacation and want to have a one-of-a-kind experience, Booking.com has the most extensive accommodation directory available to help you locate the ideal hotel.
• Booking is a global company with a huge presence in several countries. If you’re seeking a hotel in a certain city across the globe, Booking.com is sure to have it listed.

• Booking.com is the principal online presence for a lot of smaller hotels. Many small hotels as well as b&bs don’t have their own websites and depend only on Booking.com to take bookings online.

Cons of Booking

• When making a hotel reservation, Booking does not serve as a middleman. While many competitors will collect your money in order to pay for the accommodation on your behalf, Booking.com just passes your payment details to the hotel, and you are bound by their rules.
• Booking has links to flights and auto rentals on their website, but you’ll be sent to another site for searching and booking since Booking.com is only dedicated to hotels.
• Booking.com is completely free to use, however, all bookings are subject to the policies of the local hotel, which must be read before making a reservation.

Hotels.com (“Hotels”) 

Hotels.com is a hotel-focused tripadvisor.com competitor. This website enables you to search for hotels in any place and gives in-depth hotel ratings with straightforward side-by-side analyses.

Cost of a hypothetical nonstop trip from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Maui, Hawaii: not provided

Honua Kai charges $610/night CAD for a two-bedroom suite.

Pros of Hotels:

• Hotels offer a robust booking system that allows you to book hotels straight from their website.
• Internal point systems compete with hotel property-level incentive points. Hotels will cover for the tenth night for free for every 10 nights stayed at a hotel. 
• Some of the disadvantages of using a third-party agent to book hotels are eliminated.

Cons of Hotels

• Because hotels only concentrate on hotels, you will have to visit many websites to plan a vacation thoroughly.
• Hotels lack Trip Advisor’s respected and extensive review system. Unlike Tripadvisor, where many hotel facilities collect evaluations from all guests, Hotels.com gives reviews, but they are often fewer in number and originate solely from Hotels.com customers.

Hotel bookings are free, however, the website may collect a service fee.

Kayak

Kayak is a meta-searching reservation engine that searches hundreds of websites to discover the best deals on flights, accommodations, rental cars, and other travel-related services. As a result, it may be a great method to uncover great prices on all kinds of travel items.

$512 CAD for a non-stop trip from Vancouver, British Columbia to Maui, Hawaii.

Kayak directed me to the cost of a two-bedroom apartment at Honua Kai from Expedia’s website

Kayak’s advantages include the following:

• Kayak will scour the web for the best hotel, airline, and auto rental prices. It allows users to search for bargains on Priceline, Orbitz, and Expedia, as well as other Kayak rivals.
• Kayak has a nice map interface for seeing where hotels are located and what they have available.

Kayak’s Cons:

• Kayak is primarily concerned with prices and does not provide much in the way of facilities evaluations. As a result, Kayak is more likely to be used in conjunction with some other booking site for more in-depth inquiry.
• It’s not always evident if a booking is made via Kayak or through a third party. Because Kayak combines all pricing results from around the internet to get the lowest possible price, it’s important to read the small print on each transaction to understand the cancellation costs and other terms of service.
• Kayak does not provide a menu of restaurants or other activities.
• The user interface is a mess in my opinion.

Kayak is a no-cost platform.

Google Flights

Although I haven’t used Google Flights to book a flight, I have looked at it.

A nonstop trip from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Maui, Hawaii, costs $449 CAD. (I’m blown away.)

Honua Kai’s two-bedroom suite cost is not available on the platform.

Pros:

• Google is known for its very user-friendly interface.
• It seems to have nice bargains (I’m not the kind to spend hours scouring the Internet for ways to save money… I’d rather have things done as quickly as possible).
• If you have a Gmail account, your account is set up instantly, and you will be able to book immediately. Making profiles and accounts is something I despise doing.
• It’s lightning speedy; searches load in seconds, which is fantastic.
• Excellent UI for mobile phones.
• A price-tracking service is available.

Cons

• There isn’t any kind of incentive mechanism in place.
• Only flights are available for booking. I like to make all of my reservations at once.

Skyscanner

Skyscanner, like TripAdvisor, allows users to provide evaluations on a variety of locations, including hotels, restaurants, and other businesses. You may also make hotel reservations, airplane reservations, and other travel arrangements. It’s a standard full-service travel website.

A nonstop trip from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Maui, Hawaii, costs $778 CAD.

I was directed to Trip.com, which was not helpful in determining the cost per night for a two-bedroom suite at Honua Kai.

Pros

• It’s simple to use (though I’ve never used it to plan a vacation).

Cons

• A large number of images fail to load. 
• There were blank picture spots in the Bellingham motels that I checked out.

Vacation Rentals & Homestays

Guesthouse and vacation rental arrangements are also available via TripAdvisor. I’ve stayed at several of these places, but never via TripAdvisor. VRBO is my top pick.

Instead of duplicating everything here, have a look at this excellent essay on AirBnB alternatives, which includes homestays, holiday rentals, and Airbnb.

Restaurants

Yelp

Tripadvisor has a lot of restaurant and activity reviews. Yelp provides a comparable experience, with in-depth ratings and listings on restaurants and other attractions, making it one of the finest alternatives to Tripadvisor.

Yelp’s Advantages 

• Yelp provides extensive restaurant coverage. Yelp has risen to prominence as the go-to portal for locating restaurants, with more ratings and information than Trip Advisor.
• Yelp has a wide range of parameters, making it simple to create a unique search query to discover the restaurant you’re searching for, whether it’s a cheap street food cart or a fine dining establishment.
• To be as open as possible, Yelp provides a variety of sorting options. Other sorting choices, such as Yelp sort, provide equal weight to all reviews to create a fully balanced collection of perspectives, while Yelp sort gives weight to many of its better-regarded reviewers.

Yelp’s disadvantages include the fact that it is still predominantly a restaurant review site. While it does include additional services, it falls short of Tripadvisor or other services in most cases.

Yelp is a costless service.

Zomato

Zomato is another meal review service that may be used to find and pick restaurants, similar to TripAdvisor.

Zomato’s Advantages

• Zomato’s evaluations are brief and easy to understand. When you visit a Zomato website, you will see a basic number rating of the restaurant’s major attributes.
• The restaurant’s menu is often seen on Zomato.

Cons of Zomato

• Like Yelp, Zomato is confined to just food reviews, making it less comprehensive than TripAdvisor.

Zomato is a costless service.

Reviews and Information

Google Maps

Google Maps is my ultimate favorite. I recall thinking to myself at the time, “Why did Google do that?” It has proven to be a big success since it seamlessly combines with search, particularly locally-oriented internet search and information.

Trip Advisor has been surpassed by Google Maps as a viable alternative. While Google Maps isn’t only for trip planning, it does provide many of the same capabilities in a single interface. Customers may leave reviews and rating shops and restaurants on Google Maps, which is becoming more robust.

Google Maps allows you to compare and contrast hotels. This website also provides detailed instructions between destinations and suggests the optimal method of transportation, which might include flying, driving, using public transportation, or walking.

Google Maps’ benefits include:

• The usage of Google Maps is simple. Because so many people use Google Maps, these users are probably already acquainted with the UI. Google Maps makes it easy for users to comprehend where their favorite destinations are in relation to other destinations since everything is shown on a unified map screen. For example, if I make a reservation and need to locate a restaurant, I can quickly search for “restaurants near my hotel” and get the top options in the region. This feature isn’t available on any other travel website.
• Google Maps can assist in determining the most effective route between two points. Rather than assuming that flying is the quickest way to go from location A to location B, Google Maps suggests driving or using public transportation, both of which may be more fascinating and less costly. Google Maps also has a Google Flights feature that includes a powerful booking engine that allows you to easily see and compare a large range of flights.

Google Maps’ drawbacks include the following:

• Google Maps, on the other hand, isn’t as tourist-friendly. While TripAdvisor aggressively seeks evaluations from visitors and travelers, Google Maps often obtains more reviews from locals. While this may be advantageous in that it allows consumers to have a more localized view of how wonderful a restaurant is, it also implies that the location may not be quite as familiar and comfortable serving visitors.
• Other activities are difficult to classify on Google Maps. Google Maps is wonderful for finding a hotel, a restaurant, and the best route to get to your goal, but it isn’t as good for finding things to do if you’re unfamiliar with the area. Outside of the Google Maps environment, I would conduct some research on some of the main items to see if I knew anything about a new area.

Google Maps is available for download for free.

TripExpert 

TripExpert tackles a major issue with user-submitted rating sites such as TripAdvisor: a lack of editorial supervision. For its ratings, TripExpert incorporates the input of “experts.” Either you like this oversight or you want to depend only on the comments of other travelers.

You may also plan vacations.

Advantages: 

• “Experts” write the reviews.

Cons: 

• There are a lot of locations that aren’t covered. Nothing showed up when I typed “Bellingham, Washington.”

WikiTravel

WikiTravel is a good resource for finding information about a location. It’s like a travel and location Wikipedia.

Pros 

• There is a wealth of information on almost every location.
• Limited fluff — unlike the slew of repetitious reviews on TripAdvisor, it’s been trimmed and arranged.
• Information is objective in nature. There haven’t been any outbursts of dissatisfaction.

Cons 

• The website does not have the best appearance.
• There aren’t many pictures, if any at all.