It's been a long time coming, but Google has finally put the last nail in Google Trips' coffin. That's right, the trip-planning app is no more, becoming the latest addition to the infamous Google Graveyard, the resting place of once-promising apps that Google kills for various reasons.
Google is officially shutting down Trips, effective Aug. 5. The company wants instead to steer its users to its reworked travel search and Google Maps. Users' information and tools aren't going away, although they will have to look for them in other places.
Google Trips Goes Away
Notes, saved places, and reservations will all still be there as long as the user signs into their Google account. Google says users will "soon" have the option to add or edit notes through the search site's travel portal. To find attractions, events, or popular areas in a geography, users can search for "my trips" or go to the revamped Travel page Google now offers.
Google announced changes to its dedicated Travel site back in September 2018, which included many of the features that had been broken out into the official Trips app.
Back To Google Maps
Google will now focus on driving users back to Travel and including more of the functionality in Google Maps. There, users will be able to add and edit notes in the "Travel" section and find saved attractions, flights, and even hotels for upcoming and past trips. Also, users will be able to search for a destination or iconic places by swiping up on the "Explore" tab in Google Maps.
Moreover, tapping the menu icon will now bring users to places they've saved under the "Your Places" section. Plus, users will soon get their upcoming reservations organized by trip and those reservations will also be available offline so users don't have to download them.
These changes make plenty of sense, although they're rather unfortunate for those who liked having all their vacation information stored in one place. Even still, it's easy to see why Google had to kill Trips three years after launching it. Many of the features available in that app are now also accessible from a web browser or Google Maps, both of which are likely already on users' phones. As such, there's not much sense to maintaining a centralized app, especially when both Search and Maps offer the same, if not more, tools for those itching to travel.
