When visiting a new city, finding comprehensive information on what to do and see there can be challenging. To help with getting to know your next destination, you can find many travel guides online and in print. One of the most famous travel guide providers is Lonely Planet.
Even if you haven’t used a print book from Lonely Planet, you may have used the lonelyplanet.com guides and content. In addition, the brand now has a convenient travel guide app.
As the team at Wanderlog loves travel planner applications (like our own) that make finding new places to visit easy, we were eager to get started using the travel guide app for this Lonely Planet app review.
Wanderlog is also a travel application that’s free to use. We allow you to plan itineraries by adding your travel information and places to visit on one convenient platform. Wanderlog also offers a vast array of suggested activities and attractions to see in the cities you’re planning to visit.
While we think our offering is great, we aren’t afraid to test and review other travel-based applications! If you’re keen to learn more about the Lonely Planet Guides app and what we think after trying it, keep reading!
Lonely Planet produces travel guides and content to help travelers discover new destinations and new things to do. The company was founded in 1972 by two backpackers, Tony and Maureen Wheeler, and today is one of the world’s best known travel guide brands.
The goal of Lonely Planet is to inform and inspire travelers with unique and expert content. While the company started out producing print travel guide books, it now creates an array of digital content for the modern traveler. Lonely Planet digital phrasebooks are also available.
Content covered includes destination guides, travel stories, travel news, and travel videos. The brand also produces Lonely Planet app guides for mobile devices.
The brand has been featured by an array of publications, and has a vast social media following with three million followers on Instagram, over two and a half million followers on Facebook, and over six million followers on Twitter.
Along with publishing print books and content on lonelyplanet.com, the brand has an app called “Guides by Lonely Planet.” You can download both a Lonely Planet iOS app and a Lonely Planet Android App. The Guides app also includes a convenient Lonely Planet Phrasebook app.
If you’re interested in using the application, you may be wondering: “Is Lonely Planet app free?” When researching for this Lonely Planet app review, we discovered that it is free to download the app and access some guides. However, you must pay a subscription fee to get full access to all the guides and app features.
You can choose from three subscription options:
| Feature | Free Version | Paid Subscription |
| City Guide Main Page | Yes | Yes |
| Must-See Places of Interest (POIs) | Can only access four POIs per month | Yes – Full Access |
| Custom Maps and Bucket Lists with Saved POIs | Can only add four locations per month (and is tied to the above limit) | Yes – Full Access |
| Curated Collections | Yes | Yes |
| Videos | No | Yes |
| 360-Degree Immersive Experiences | No | Yes |
| Tours and Ticket Purchase | Yes | Yes |
| Phrasebooks | No | Yes |
Choosing Your City Guide
While using the app for this Lonely Planet app review, we noticed that you can also add a Siri or Google Assistant shortcut to the guide by clicking “Add to Siri” or “Add to Google Assistant.”
Must-See
The “Must-See” section of the guide features attractions, landmarks, and other places of interest within the city.
Non-subscribers can only access four must-see locations a month. Once you subscribe, you can view as many places of interest mentioned within city guides as you like and add them to maps.
Tickets & Tours
The “Tickets & Tours” portion of the city guide offers a chance to pay for tours and tickets to attractions.
You can view as many tours and tickets for the city as you want. There is no limit for non-subscribers.
Immersive Experiences
These experiences give you a ground-level 360-degree view of places of interest, similar to Google Maps’ street view. Only paying members can access this feature.
Curated Collections
Curated collections show pre-planned itineraries and lists. These collections are often themed, such as “Top Experiences,” “Markets,” or “Churches.”
Non-subscribers can view as many of these collections as they like, but clicking on stops to learn more counts toward your four a month limit.
Videos
Paid subscribers have access to informative videos covering a range of topics that would be of interest to those visiting the city. The number of videos available, if any, will vary from city to city.
Book Purchase
There is additionally a button called “Get the Book,” which allows you to purchase a Lonely Planet guide for the city you’re viewing if one is available. You can purchase:
You can find guides for approximately 8,368 cities within the Lonely Planet Guides App. The amount of information included in each guide will vary from city to city.
Cities to choose from are located across the globe, with the ten most popular cities to view guides for being:
The Lonely Planet Phrasebook feature found within the app offers access to 19 audio phrasebooks. You can only use phrasebooks if you have paid for a subscription.
The languages you can access are:
When exploring the different city guides available for this Lonely Planet app review, we found that you have access to a vast array of cities and attractions. The Lonely Planet app offers guides for 8,368 cities, with more being added frequently. You can also discover a total of 350,235 places of interest across these 8,368 cities.
If you have a paid subscription, creating custom maps featuring places of interest you want to visit is easy. You can also access these maps offline, which is convenient when traveling as you may not have access to data or WIFI.
If you can’t decide where to visit in certain cities, you can access pre-made itineraries covering a range of themes. For example, many tourist hotspots, like London, have “Curated Collections” for must-visit museums, markets, landmarks, and more.
With a subscription, you can access 19 phrasebooks covering the world’s most spoken languages. Each book is conveniently split up into categories you’ll need when traveling such as “Transport,” “Accommodation,” and “Sightseeing.” You also have access to both written phrases and audio recordings to help with your speaking skills.
The video library, available for select cities, offers informative content that’s easy to consume and can help you plan what you must see and visit.
When exploring a city via the guide, you can find tours and tickets to attractions that you can book straight away via third-party platform Viator. This feature allows you to discover experiences you can try and pre-pay for tickets to a multitude of attractions, saving you time once at the destination.
When using the app for this Lonely Planet app review, we found that if you don’t pay for a subscription, access to features is limited. You can only view four places of interest per month, so if you want to learn more about the attractions you can visit in certain cities and create custom maps, you’ll only be able to do so if you pay.
You also don’t have access to the 19 phrasebooks offered by Lonely Planet unless you pay for a subscription.
While having all the guides, your custom maps, and phrasebooks in one place is convenient, using the Lonely Planet app is not the only option you have to choose from.
You can likely find free guides online relating to the city you wish to visit, including on lonelyplanet.com. You can then create custom maps featuring locations you wish to visit using a free application like Google Maps. Similarly, you can find free language applications and phrasebooks to use, such as Duolingo, and travel videos are available on YouTube and social media platforms.
You can also find an array of travel planning apps at no cost, such as Wanderlog. With Wanderlog, for example, you can discover places to visit and things to do in the city you’re visiting. You can then add all of your must-visit locations to maps and itineraries. Additionally, you can upload information about your transport, accommodation, reservations, and more, allowing everything about your trip to be in one location!
Despite offering guides for over 8,300 cities, the amount of information relating to each city varies, mainly based on the popularity of the cities. Popular destinations, like Paris and New York, feature a lot of information. But many lesser-known cities listed on the app feature no or little information. While this issue is understandable, user experience may be better if cities without information were removed.
Having used the application for this Lonely Planet app review, we would say that it could be worth it, depending on what you are looking for. Firstly, we found that a paid subscription is necessary if you want to learn more about attractions, create maps, watch videos, and/or use the phrasebooks.
We would recommend the Lonely Planet Guides App for those that enjoy using print travel guides and are looking for a digital alternative. The app is also great for those that want all their travel guide information in one place.
However, we found that you can use a range of free alternatives in place of the Lonely Planet app. These alternatives include non-travel-focused tools like Google Maps and other travel tech, such as travel planning apps like Wanderlog.
Despite this, those that use the app appear to be impressed. The Lonely Planet iPhone guide receives 4.8/5 stars based on 370+ reviews. The Android version receives 4.4/5 stars based on 23K+ reviews on the Google Play store.
One positive Lonely Planet iPhone App review highlights how the app effectively replaces the original print books, saying: “I always loved the LP books. The app is equally as useful and enjoyable with a tad less weight.”
Overall, the subscription fee to Lonely Planet Guides is not that high, and users of traditional guidebooks are likely to be impressed. However, more tech-savvy individuals will be able to find similar free apps or use a combination of free online tools to get the same results (attraction suggestions, map creation, videos, language lessons, etc.)
If you’re after a travel planning app that creates itineraries and tracks everything relating to your trip, Wanderlog is the app for you! With Wanderlog, you can:
Start using Wanderlog today by creating your first trip. Best of all, the app is 100% free to use!
