Inspirock Review: Does it really help for your next travel?
When it comes to planning a trip, creating an itinerary that includes all the must-see attractions can be a daunting task. This is where Inspirock, a travel itinerary planner, comes into play. Inspirock claims to provide customized day-to-day itineraries based on your specific requirements and trip duration.
Similar to Tourist, Inspirock offers an easy-to-use web and mobile trip planner that suggests the best things to do and places to see. Your itinerary can then be saved directly in your Tourist account. As travel planning enthusiasts, we decided to try out the Inspirock trip planner for ourselves. We discovered that the website provides great suggestions for activities in various cities and the added convenience of being able to book accommodations and tickets directly. However, there are a few drawbacks that we will discuss in detail below. For instance, Inspirock lacks a mobile app, doesn't help with tracking flights, and has a few other limitations.
If you want to know more about Inspirock, including its features, benefits, and drawbacks, and whether it is worth using, keep reading!
So what is this?
In 2012, Anoop Goyal and Prakash Sikchi founded Inspirock, a website for planning trips. The website's primary objective is to simplify the process of creating a customized itinerary packed with activities.
Inspirock uses both artificial intelligence and local expertise to develop day-to-day itineraries for its users. It offers itineraries for over 80,000 locations worldwide. Once you have a basic itinerary, you can modify it by removing unappealing attractions and adding hotel stays and other activities reservations to your liking.
This travel planning website is hugely popular, attracting roughly 25 million users every year. Inspirock has been prominently featured in notable publications such as Forbes, Conde Nast Traveler, and TechCrunch, among others.
What is the cost of Inspirock?
If you are curious about the cost of using Inspirock, you will be delighted to know that it is completely free of charge.
How does Inspirock earn money?
During our research for this Inspirock review, it became clear that the company does not charge its users. Instead, to generate revenue, Inspirock operates an affiliate program that earns commission from partners such as hotels, airlines, and attraction booking companies when a user makes a booking through Inspirock. This affiliate model does not raise the prices for these services, but it also means that Inspirock's priority may be to direct users towards its booking partners, rather than providing the best trip planner tool possible.
What can you find in Inspirock?
Inspirock offers several features to help travelers plan their trips effectively. Here are the main features:
Automatic Day-to-Day Itinerary Creation: Inspirock automatically creates day-to-day travel itineraries for you. Simply input your destination, dates, and preferences, and the tool will generate a full itinerary for you. You can also access itineraries created by other users.
Customization: You can edit the automated itinerary to exclude or include activities as per your requirements.
Accommodation Suggestions: Click on "Where to Stay" to view accommodation options from Inspirock's travel partners, including booking.com and Airbnb.
Activity Suggestions: Inspirock provides activity suggestions, including nightlife activities, hiking trails, and museums. You can also search for other activities in your destination.
Tour Suggestions: In addition to the places to visit, Inspirock provides a range of tours to book, such as boat tours, wine tours, and city walks.
Car and Flight Deals: If you are driving, Inspirock has car dealership partners that can help you rent a car. If you are flying, Inspirock connects you to Skyscanner to get the best flight rates.
Direct Booking Link: You can book activities, tours, hotels, flights, car rentals, and more directly from the provider via a direct link. This is how Inspirock earns its revenue.
Travel Checklist: Once your itinerary is complete, you can access a helpful travel checklist that includes tour and activity ticket reservations, hotel reservations, weather forecasts, and travel insurance options.
How can you use Inspirock?
To begin planning your trip with Inspirock, simply visit their website and enter your destination, travel dates, and number of travelers. You can also select additional preferences such as whether you prefer popular or lesser-known activities and whether you want a relaxed or fast-paced itinerary. Inspirock also allows you to choose preferences for cultural, outdoor, romantic, beach, historic, museum, shopping, and wildlife activities.
Once you have input your preferences, Inspirock generates an itinerary matching your criteria using AI technology and input from local experts. You can then customize the itinerary by deleting or adding activities, as well as searching for additional options such as parks, hidden gems, tours, and shopping.
Finally, you can book hotels or tickets for activities and attractions directly from the Inspirock website via a provided link.
Is there an App for Inspirock?
During our evaluation of Inspirock, we found out that it does not have a mobile application available. Therefore, to plan travel itineraries, you must use the website (inspirock.com). However, you can still share your trip plans with friends and family via social media platforms. Additionally, Inspirock provides an option to add collaborators, allowing multiple users to contribute to the itinerary planning process.
Main Benefits of Inspirock
Customization Features
With Inspirock, you have the ability to personalize your travel itinerary in various ways. Before the itinerary is generated, you can input your preferences and add specific activities. You can also easily remove or substitute any automatically generated activities, allowing you to create a personalized itinerary that meets all of your travel needs.
Effortless Booking
Inspirock doesn't handle bookings, but it makes booking travel necessities simple by providing direct links to booking websites. This includes booking accommodations, flights, car rentals, tickets for attractions and tours, and more.
Travel Discovery Tools
One of the best things about using Inspirock for travel planning is the wealth of discovery features it offers. The platform provides suggestions for things to do and see automatically, and you can search for additional options. You can also browse itineraries created by other users for even more travel ideas.
Main Negative Sides of Inspirock
Challenges with Itinerary Customization
According to several user reviews, customizing an itinerary can be difficult, especially when it comes to adding flight information and making day-to-day adjustments. Users have reported that the program often readjusts plans automatically and adds suggestions in empty slots, making it hard to make changes. One user noted that adding or deleting items from the itinerary was not an easy task.
Suggested Attractions Can Be Inconvenient
Some users have complained that the suggested attractions are not always in close proximity to the city they are visiting and are not popular tourist spots. This could be because Inspirock may not have enough information about certain locations.
Inefficient Organization of Attractions
Users have also mentioned that attractions are not always grouped together geographically, causing travelers to spend time running around the city instead of focusing on places clustered in one area. For example, one user reviewer complained that they had to travel all over Kyoto to visit nearby attractions because they were not grouped together in the itinerary.
No Mobile Application is Available
Unfortunately, Inspirock does not have a mobile application at this time, which means that users can only access and plan itineraries via the website. Although you can share your travel plans on social media, not having a mobile app can be inconvenient for travelers who rely on their smartphones to access their day-to-day itinerary while on the go.
Should You Use Inspirock?
After using Inspirock's website, we have come to the conclusion that there are both advantages and disadvantages to using it for day-to-day travel itineraries. While the platform provides good activity recommendations, the quality of recommendations tends to decline in less popular locations. Customizing itineraries can be challenging, making it less ideal for those who want to add a lot of their own activities.
Despite these issues, Inspirock has a mainly positive reputation with a Trustpilot score of 4.6/5 stars based on over 2,900 reviews. 91% of reviewers rate it as "Excellent" or "Great". One review summarizes the benefits and drawbacks well: "Very good travel log for the items it offers. It needs to be able to ADD dining options and of course have an app. For the casual traveler, this probably works fine. But for serious and frequent travelers, there are better options."
While using Inspirock to plan your itinerary is free, be aware of its limitations. Nonetheless, it's worth trying as it may introduce you to incredible attractions you wouldn't have found otherwise. If you find Inspirock lacking, you may want to consider Tourist, which has a different approach to travel planning and offers additional features such as keeping your reservations, mapping out routes, and allowing more detailed customization.