The Guides app by Lonely Planet offers an immersive and comprehensive view of over 150 cities worldwide, brought to you by one of the most well-respected travel guide companies in the world. Guides truly brings the best of the tour guide book experience to mobile.
The app can be navigated via the simple-card based design, which features each city by name and a striking photo representation of the cityscape or an identifiable building. Upon selecting a city, the user is prompted to download the city guide -- a key feature for travelers who don’t have access to their usual data plans. The map within the city guide can also be downloaded for viewing offline.
Within each city guide the user can navigate using a scrolling tabbed navigation along the top of the screen which divides content into various interest categories, like “see”, “eat”, “sleep”, and “shop”. The home screen of each guide is divided into distinct content sections that are easy to navigate and explore. Below the map is a horizontally scrolling list of “must see” attractions in the city, each represented by a striking photograph, a name, and a designation (eg; church, architecture, park, market). Below the must sees is another horizontally-scrolling card-based navigation, this one featuring Lonely Guides curated collections of the top attractions within each category. The breadth of content within each city guide is admirable, and is certainly enough to make the app a worthy download for travelers everywhere.
The app is intuitive to use, and pathways to content are direct and simple to navigate. A simple white and grey background is punctuated by high-quality photography that is representative of each city. Accent colors are judiciously employed to associated categories on the map -- purple for hotels, for example, and red for attractions.
Guides by Lonely Planet is a great app design in the food & beverage, hospitality and travel industries.
