If you’ve ever tried dragging a bunch of tired kids and all of their luggage around an airport while searching for a charging port, a snack, or a bathroom — let alone the gate for the next leg of your flight that boards in five minutes — you’ll know why I’m so happy about the new interactive airport maps that launched today on the TripIt app for Pro users.
Yes, airports have their own maps (if you can get most of their stupid websites to load while you’re in the airport) but this one is easy on the eyes, it’s interactive, and it’s launched with info for 51 airports worldwide, to start, right on the app you may be using to manage your travel itinerary anyway.
Related: 6 simple tech tips for travel with kids that save us every time
It will map out any route for you, say you’re dying for Shake Shack in JFK or a charging station at LAX that Very Important Businessdude isn’t totally monopolizing with his 18 devices.
But the best part to me is the walking time estimate, like the ones you get on map apps.
I know what it’s like when someone points you toward a coffee shop at 5AM during a layover and you haul your butt all the way there just to discover it’s not open for another hour. Or the stress of racing between terminals with no time to spare to make a connection.
It would alleviate a whole lot of that stress for me knowing I can make it in 11 minutes flat.
TripIt timeline view: Soooo easy to manage your itinerary
The new interactive airport maps are not the main reason you’ll want TripIt Pro; there are a zillion others like seat tracking, a free CLEAR trial, real-time traffic notifications, and ticket refund monitoring. (The app once saved me six hundreds dollars with a price drop alert on a Delta ticket I had already booked!) But it is a nice-to-have feature that I’m sure I’ll use.
Anything to de-stress air travel is good by me.
Get a free 30-day trial of TripIt Pro on the website; after that it’s $49 a year, or just keep the basic features for free. Download for iOS at the App Store, or Android through Google Play.
