NOTED Places: Store Your Favorite Places With This Cool Travel App

Writer Alex Ota discovers a new app to track travels, suggestions and create ideal trips.

As avid travelers, we all go through the same routine—we hungrily devour the latest issues of Travel + Leisure, Sunset or Outside, earmarking destinations as we read about prospective destinations. Or, we watch the travel channel, furiously scribbling notes about the exotic locales being covered, wanting to remember them for our future odysseys.

Personally, I tear out magazine pages and stuff them into a file labeled “Where to Go,” and know that when I’m ready to take my next trip, I can reach in and thumb through them.

In fact, I recently pulled out that exact file—rag tag as it is, with bits of papers falling out—and my husband started laughing. “THAT’s your file he asked?” Isn’t there a better way?”

Turns out there is.

I recently stumbled upon an app called NOTED Places. Essentially, it lets you jot down all of your “must-visit” places, and have them in one place. But the cool thing is that the app categorizes them into “eat,” “stay” and “play” and then takes it a step further by separating them into lists.

On a recent trip to Portland, I had the opportunity to go on a “brewcycle tour,” which, believe it or not, is frequented mostly by locals. After a few stops, I got to know my fellow “brewcyclists” and when they found out that I was from out of town, my new-found friends started to spout off restaurants that I just HAD to try. Luckily, I had NOTED Places on my phone, and was able to enter the establishments as fast as they were talking. What resulted was a beautiful Portland round-up of fabulous eateries.

After using NOTED Places for a bit I ended up with my own personalized travel guides for several destinations with the best places to eat, stay and play. What’s also cool is that I can share these lists with my friends (who also have the app downloaded). So, if I have a pal going to Portland, I can send her my Portland “play” list. I love this app because tip sharing is easy, and then you get to be a traveler in a new town, not a tourist.

NOTED Places is available for iPhone or iPad.

Download it for free in iTunes