Trip Genius is no lightweight trip planner!

mTrip launched just two months ago with some of the best technology for travel apps out there. One of mTrip’s most unique trip planning features is the all mighty TRIP GENIUS!!!

This feature is exclusive technology, in other words, mTrip is the only travel application offering this complex feature. The Trip Genius is like your personal tour guide because not only does it plan your trip itinerary, it also guides you around the city to each point of interest you plan to visit. Let me explain…

For the traveler, its simple because the Trip Genius does the thinking for you; however, what may look like a simple trip itinerary planner is really the work of a genius algorithm calculating your trip itinerary to absolute perfection. Visiting a new city? Don’t know what neighborhoods to visit? What attractions to see? How to order your trip?

* Trip Dates * When you launch the app, a screen pops up that asks you to indicate your trip dates on a calendar – the day you arrive at your destination and the day you return. Further, you are asked to specify what period of the day you are leaving.

* Accommodation * Next, you are asked to tell the guide where you are staying for the duration of your trip. The point is to tell the guide your start point for your trip so mTrip can create an itinerary that makes geographical sense. You have multiple options – you can find your hotel in mTrip’s travel directory, add a place to the guide (if the hotel is for some reason not in the directory or if you are staying with a family member, for example), OR you can simply choose ‘City Center’ if for example you don’t know where you are staying. You can always change your start point later and re-order your trip.

* Trip Genius * Here’s where you get to tell the guide your preferences. Whereas you can choose to create your own trip itinerary from scratch (adding points of interest one by one), I’m going to explain how the Genius does all the work for you.

When you click on the Trip Genius, you are taken to a screen that asks you to specify your sightseeing preferences. The four main categories are museums, monuments, parks and religious. You can choose the intensity (or lack thereof) for each of these and then you can also choose the intensity of your trip overall. Do you prefer a fast-paced, non-stop globe-trotting experience or do you prefer to slow it down to a strolling pace?

Next, you indicate whether you want the guide to suggest Top Attractions or Alternative Attractions. The way the Genius calculates this is based on traveler ratings and number of ratings. Higher ratings from more people indicates a top attraction whereas high ratings from fewer people indicates an alternative, off-the-beaten path and possibly hidden gem type of attraction! Lastly, tell the guide whether you want to include your favourites in the itinerary. When perusing the guide, you can save a point of interest as a favorite, which will add it to your trip itinerary.

Now you are ready to launch the Trip Genius! Now that it knows the facts, it can work its magic to create your ultimate trip! This will only take a few seconds and voila! You can view each day of your trip in list or map view. In list view, you will notice that you can get distances and directions to each point of interest. You simply indicate if you want the guide to calculate the route from the previous point of interest in your trip itinerary (this is very helpful when you are actually traveling to and from each place in the order your itinerary suggest) or if you want to choose your current location on the map and get routed from there. You can then view your route step-by-step by either Subway or foot. It’s magical!

What else can you do from your trip itinerary? You can view each point of interest from the travel guide directory so you can get the details and make sure this trip suggestion is of interest to you. If not, you can edit your trip itinerary, remove points of interest, move them around to suit your schedule or even add your own places from the travel guide directory or your own personal ones. You can also change or regenerate your trip itinerary at any time if the weather or your plans change, etc…

Don’t forget to check out the Smart Order tool, another one of mTrip’s Genius functions. This tool will take your entire itinerary and ‘smart order’ it so that it makes sense based on the geographical locations of each point of interest and your starting point (your accommodation or the city centre). Once your trip is Smart Ordered, check out your itinerary in map view. You will notice the logical order of your trip – no more running around the city and wasting valuable time on your awesome vacation!

Did I mention that there are no roaming fees and no Internet connection required for this? What a GENIUS!!!