Trover – A Travel App Definitely Worth Traveling With

While walking around New York City yesterday, I stopped for a break in Washington Square Park and tried to figure out where I should eat lunch. I had no idea what I wanted to eat or where I wanted to go and so I just sat down on a bench right near a talented street performer who was playing his guitar.

And with this pleasant music in the background, I then pulled out my phone and opened Trover.

Trover is a travel app, and a website, that has quickly become my new travel companion, which I admit is weird since I normally travel alone.

Make New Discoveries Everywhere You Go

When I open the app on my phone, it automatically detects my location and immediately displays a long list of ‘discoveries’ for me to see. These discoveries have been uploaded, as photos, by other travelers who want to share great locations of all kinds that they’ve come across during their own adventures. And these discoveries are arranged in order of proximity to wherever I happen to be at any given moment.

So there I was in Washington Square Park looking at this long list of interesting monuments, art exhibitions, cool streets to wander down, shops, neighborhoods, buildings, and of course, restaurants, cafes, food stalls and more, right near by, that others have shared on the app exactly for travelers like us to discover.

Being hungry, I then chose to click on the “Food” category so that all I would see were nearby discoveries of restaurants and other eateries. And that was all it took.

Upon noticing a ‘discovery’ that was a ramen shop, which a Trover user had uploaded and labeled as “Authentic, delicious ramen. Small, unpretentious shop in the Village.”, complete with a photo of a tempting bowl of soup, I was on my way.

Soon enough, I was slurping up that very same soup and enjoying quite a spectacularly tasty ramen lunch at a great little restaurant that I otherwise would never have known about. And that’s very cool to me.

Not only that, but after my lunch I went to see a beautiful room of the New York Public Library near Bryant Park as well as Belvedere Castle in Central Park, two discoveries that I also found on Trover. And I’ll be using the app to find a place for my friend and I to eat in Brooklyn tonight and I’ll use it during my final day of wandering around NYC tomorrow.

I’ll also most definitely be using the app over the next couple of weeks while I’m in Southeast Asia. (See below for how I’ve already started planning my Southeast Asia trip with Trover.)

Trover Doesn’t Waste Your Time

I don’t use many travel apps, very few in fact, usually because they are not too user-friendly or they don’t provide me with much real benefit. If I’m going to use a travel app, I want it to be something that I can open up on my phone and instantly benefit from so that I can put that phone back in my pocket and focus on the destination itself. And that’s what you get with Trover…it’s like an instant travel enhancer that doesn’t require much effort or waste any of your time.

Share Your Own Discoveries

Of course, as you travel around, you just might want to share some of your own discoveries so that others can find them too. I’d absolutely love to know about your favorite places that you’ve come across throughout your own travels, especially those places that are not written about in regular guidebooks or that don’t generally receive much attention. And as you might have guessed, it’s quite easy to share your discoveries on Trover.

– Take a photo with your iPhone or Android through the Trover app
– The photo will automatically be geo-tagged and its location will show up on a map
– Add a short blurb about your discovery (such as a useful tip or link to more information)

That’s it, you’re done!

You can also add photos at any time through the website which is ideal. I’ve been uploading some of my own favorite locations from my earlier travels…if you’re interested you can check them out over at my Trover profile page.

Southeast Asia, I’m On My Way!

I mentioned above that I’ve also been using Trover to plan my upcoming trip to Southeast Asia and the way I’m doing that is by creating what is called a ‘List’. Lists allow me to take the most appealing discoveries I find from a certain destination and organize them in one place. It’s basically a way for me to create my own personal guide.

For example, I created a “Southeast Asia, I’m On My Way!” list. I then jumped on the Trover website and started typing in the countries I plan to visit on my trip, such as Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore. Every time I searched for a new destination, a long list of discoveries appeared for me to look at and whenever I found a discovery that caught my attention and that I would love to experience myself, I just clicked one button and added it to my list. This way, once I’m on the ground in Asia, I can just open the app and actually start visiting the discoveries I’ve collected. Not bad at all.

And if you want some extra travel inspiration and perhaps some ideas for your future travels, you can follow other people’s lists as well so that you’ll see every new discovery that they add to their collection. Here’s two of my favorite lists and I challenge you to check them out and not find yourself fully inspired!

“Oh, The Places You’ll Go”
“Favorite Places On Earth”

So that’s my new travel companion, Trover. It’s simple and useful and that’s exactly how I like a travel app to be.

To try it all out for yourself, just sign up at Trover.com and download the free app on either your iPhone or Android. I’m definitely curious to see what you think so please let us know how it goes!

What do you think? Have you heard of Trover? Are you ready to try it out?

This post was written in partnership with Trover after trying out the app and finding it truly useful and worth spreading the word about. Of course, my opinions and thoughts above are, as always, 100% my own.