Wanderlog (wanderlog.com) is an all-in-one travel-planning app: a day-by-day itinerary on the left and a live map on the right in a single view, flight/hotel/car confirmation emails that import straight into your schedule, plus budgeting, packing checklists and real-time collaboration. The pitch is "one app for all your travel planning needs" — no more juggling documents, maps, spreadsheets and inboxes (homepage, checked 2026-10-01).
Its biggest selling point is a generous free tier: the official FAQ promises the core — unlimited trips and unlimited collaborators — stays free forever. The homepage reports more than a million people have tried it, with store ratings of 4.8 on the App Store and 4.6 on Google Play (official blog, October 2024).
The homepage screenshot above (2026-10-01) shows the signature interaction: a dated itinerary with transit details (and an "Optimize route" entry) on the left, and a map mirroring every stop and route on the right.
At a Glance
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| URL | https://wanderlog.com/ |
| Type | Trip itinerary planning and collaboration app (web + mobile) |
| Cost | Core free (unlimited trips and collaborators); Pro from $39.99/year with a free trial (official blog, Pro page, as of 2026-10-01) |
| Sign-up | Account required (web or in-app) |
| Interface language | Website in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and ~10 more languages (no Chinese observed) |
| Clients | Web, iOS, Android |
| Launched | 2019, Y Combinator W19 (YC page, TechCrunch) |
Background
- Founders: Wanderlog was created in the Bay Area by twin brothers Harry Yu (CEO) and Peter Xu. Harry previously worked as an engineer at Stripe and a business analyst at McKinsey, and built the course-planning site CourseTable; the brothers loved traveling but hated the logistics, so they turned "planning" into the product (YC page, TechCrunch).
- Getting in: they were rejected by Y Combinator twice, decided to bootstrap — and then got into the W19 batch (official blog).
- Funding: a $1.5M seed round from General Catalyst and Abstract Ventures in September 2021 (TechCrunch).
- Business model: the FAQ states the core stays free forever; revenue comes from Pro subscriptions and a small percentage from bookings made through the app (official FAQ).
Key Features
- Itinerary and map in one view: daily plans, POIs and transit legs all live on the same map — planning without tab-switching.
- Booking import: forward flight/hotel/car confirmations to create itinerary entries; automatic Gmail scanning is a Pro feature (Pro page).
- Real-time collaboration: companions co-edit the trip like a shared document, with no cap on participants (free tier).
- Budgets and checklists: expense logging with splitting, plus packing and to-do lists for group coordination.
- Recommendations and guides: destination recommendations plus user-published travel guides you can copy as templates.
- Route optimization (Pro): automatically reorders stops for road trips to save time and gas (Pro page).
- Mobile and offline: iOS/Android apps; Pro downloads your plans for offline access — useful in no-signal areas (Pro page).
- Export (Pro): one-click export of your places to Google Maps, kept in sync as plans change.
Pricing (as of 2026-10-01)
| Plan | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Unlimited trips and collaborators, unlimited places, booking import, smart recommendations, itinerary-and-map view, budgets and checklists |
| Pro | From $39.99/year ("Starting at"; free trial offered) | Offline access on mobile, route optimization, automatic Gmail scanning, price comparison and flight/car deals, unlimited attachments, Google Maps export |
Note: the Pro page shows "Starting at" pricing across billing periods; exact tiers are as shown on the in-app purchase page (Pro page, official blog).
The Pro page screenshot above (2026-10-01) shows the Pro branding with a free-trial entry; "Unlock these features" highlights offline access, route optimization and Google Maps export, with Gmail scanning and price comparison completing the offer.
Who It's For
- Independent travelers building an itinerary: dump saved places onto a map, spread them across days, and see transit legs at a glance.
- Groups traveling together: one place for the plan, the split and the checklist — no endless group-chat scrolling.
- Road trippers: Pro's route optimization orders stops by how on-the-way they are.
- Anyone heading somewhere with spotty connectivity: Pro's offline access keeps the plan readable.
Limitations
- No Chinese language support: the site and app ship in a dozen-plus languages, but Chinese was not among them at check time — a barrier for Chinese-speaking users (observed 2026-10-01).
- Built on the Google ecosystem: export and maps revolve around Google Maps, so usability in mainland China is constrained by network conditions (reasonable inference).
- Pro is nice-to-have, not must-have: offline access, export and Gmail scanning matter most to heavy users; the free tier covers most planning needs.
- Accounts and bookings mean travel data on their servers; privacy-conscious users should review the privacy policy.
