Essential Travel Apps: Trover

I hate to admit it, but I’m kind of a lazy travel planner. Though I’ll often read the basics about where I’m going (neighborhoods, major attractions, etc) I generally rely on walking around and talking to people to find the things I want to see, do, or eat. While this works out some of the time, I really need to work on planning more things in advance.

In rides Trover, my lazy-planning knight in shining armor. Trover is a free website and app (available for both iPhone and Android) which allows users to post photos (or “discoveries” as they call them), geotag them, and add a description. The app combines all of the positive elements of Yelp, Instagram, FourSquare, and Pinterest, but without all of the extra BS.

The site arranges the photos by location, either by distance from a searched location, or distance from the location of your wi-fi or phone signal. This means that when you search a particular location, let’s say “Empire State Building” or “Pike Place Market,” the app will pull up photos of that location, and the farther you scroll down, the farther away those images are from that original location.

This plus the ability to “thank discoveries” (equivalent to liking posts) and make lists, means that you can find places to go in just a few clicks. Each time a user posts a discovery, Trover requires them to add a description, which makes it extra-helpful. So if you were at your hostel in a new place, you can just enter the name and then find nearby restaurants, coffee shops, attractions, and even cool street art…all with helpful information like “Best breakfast in town!” or “Hard to find, but if you turn off x road, look for the blue building with white trim.”

One of the other things I love about this app is that there is some great curating done by the site moderators. It’s easy to access lists of Trovers with great content, and lists of popular and beautiful photos. There’s some hashtagging and user tagging as well, but not enough that it feels spammy, just enough to be helpful.

Trover also does some map-oriented organizing that can definitely be a fun little bonus feature for travel bloggers. The top of each profile lists countries that have been posted, which makes it easy for their photos to be sorted. There’s also a map displayed in the upper-right corner of the photo feed on each profile, making a great little digital version of the classic map with pins.

Though the user base is still relatively small (but rapidly expanding), most Trovers are very active: making lists, commenting on posts, and sharing with their friends and fellow Trovers. The experience feels genuine and positive, and if the attitude is sustained as Trover grows in popularity, I feel that this can be an incredible, useful, and very fun community and resource for travelers and travel bloggers.

You can follow me on Trover here!