Google Inc. has launched new app Google Trips, a combination trip planning and tour guide app for when you are on the go and exploring a new place.

The app, which is available on Google’s own Android operating system as well as Apple’s iOS, allows a user to organize their plane tickets and hotel reservations, offers editorial guides to more than 200 cities, and delivers personalized recommendation based on your Google history.

Perhaps the best feature: all of this information can be downloaded and stored for access when you’re offline, so if you arrive at your destination but don’t have internet access, Google Trips maintains everything you need, including maps on how to get to your destination.

“Google Trips is a personalized tour guide in your pocket. Each trip contains key categories of information, including day plans, reservations, things to do, food & drink, and more, so you have everything you need at your fingertips,” the announcement post notes.

Of the 200 cities included as guides, Google Trips is able to deliver a variety of day plans featuring the most popular daily itineraries, including popular sights, attractions, and local gems into a full day’s tour — all based on historic visits by other travelers.

Route planning

One handy feature could be perhaps described as an extension of Google Maps, and that’s route planning based on sites a person wishes to see. Say for example there was one or two sites in a given city a traveler wanted to see Google Trips can plot those, work out travel between them, and recommend other points of interest nearby, allowing a traveler to plan out their half or full day of travel complete with maps and best ways to visit each place in the best order.

If the overall service sounds a little familiar that’s because it is: Google Trips is really a massive extension of what Google Now already provides on Android phones in terms of trip tracking, but with the added features of more extensive tools and guides dedicated specifically for a trip.

While it’s too early to test without having had a chance to take a trip using it as yet, on paper it sounds like a winner.

You can grab a copy of Google Trips from the Android Play Store or the Apple App Store via the links.

Image credit: Google.