NY Waterway vs Wildbound Trips
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
NY Waterway
Purchase ferry tickets paper-free and use your phone as your boarding pass. Securely store personal information and payment details for convenient travel across New York Harbor. Access route maps, schedules, and advisories for a seamless journey.
- Paper-free ticket purchasing
- Phone as ticket
- Secure encrypted transactions
- Route maps
- Schedules
- Advisories
- Bus locator
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Your Phone Is Your Ticket. This app allows users to purchase NY Waterway tickets paper-free from any location and use their phone as a ticket. All personal information and payments are transmitted encrypted and stored securely. NY Waterway has the largest ferry and excursion fleet in the New York Harbor. Since it's launch in 1986, it has served over 65 million passengers. With routes stretching along both the Hudson and East Rivers and a complimentary bus service, NY Waterway is an easy and comfortable way to travel to and from Manhattan. Features: - Secure ticket purchasing - Your phone is your ticket - Route maps - Schedules - Advisories - Bus Locator
Wildbound Trips
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Every crew has one person who remembers everything. Wildbound is that person. Plan a trip, pack it from lists you actually reuse, get out the door on time, and keep every site worth going back to. Each stage feeds the next, so the list gets better every trip instead of starting from a blank page. PLAN THE TRIP Name it, set the dates, say who's coming. Wildbound scales quantities to your headcount, so a weekend for two and a week for six aren't the same list. Pick from 107 starter lists — car camping, backpacking, RV, cold weather, fishing, paddling, dogs, kids — or build your own. PACK IT, ITEM BY ITEM Real gear lists with quantities, grouped the way you load the truck. Check things off as they go in. Edit the list while you pack: drop something from this trip, or from the list itself, without stopping to think about it. That's how the list gets good — you fix it at the moment you notice, not on a form afterwards. PACK IT AS A CREW Share a trip and everyone sees the same list, live. Hand out items by name. Check-off can't collide, even with no signal — it queues on the phone and syncs the moment you're back in range. Guests join from a link in any browser: no app, no account, no password, and no charge. GET OUT THE DOOR ON TIME Reminders on your own schedule, each one routed to whoever's responsible. The grocery reminder goes to the person bringing groceries, not to the whole group. A Lock Screen countdown ticks down to departure. KEEP THE PLACES WORTH KEEPING Your own private place-book: real site numbers, cell bars by carrier, amenities, quiet-or-rowdy notes, and how far it is from home. It's yours — not a public database, not a review feed, not shared with anyone. STAY ON TOP OF THE RIG Upkeep tracks the work with no trip attached — winterizing, wheel bearings, the annual service. Each job runs on its own clock: every few months, every spring, every so many trips, nights out, or miles. WHAT IT COSTS Using Wildbound on your own is free, with no time limit and no nagging. Planning, packing, your gear library, Upkeep and iCloud sync are all free, always. Sharing a trip with a crew is $4.99 a year, and the first month of it is free — starting the first time you share, not the day you install. If you join someone else's trip, you never pay anything. PRIVACY No ads, no analytics, no tracking, and no account to create. Your trips, gear and saved spots stay on your device and sync through your own iCloud, which we can't read. Sharing a trip copies that one trip's list to our server so your crew can see it, and it's deleted 30 days after the trip ends. Nothing is sold, mined, or published — there's no public feed and never will be. Universal: iPhone, iPad and Mac. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://apps.stonemesastudio.com/privacy-wildbound
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: NY Waterway at none against Wildbound Trips's 4. NY Waterway also leads on iOS requirement (15.6 vs 18.0). Wildbound Trips's advantage is update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 3 months). On price, ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Wildbound Trips sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per year. NY Waterway asks for nothing beyond the download.
NY Waterway ships an update every 3 months, Wildbound Trips every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 30, 2026 and October 9, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | NY Waterway | Wildbound Trips |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (11K ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 16.2% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 11K — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Every 2 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 103 MB | 9 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Bytemark, Inc. | Stone Mesa Studio, LLC |
Bugs and requests
NY Waterway
Reported bugs
4 issues- Frequent app crashes
- Inability to log in or access tickets
- Tickets disappearing from user accounts
- Compatibility issues with newer devices
Requested features
5 requests- Live ferry tracking
- Improved bus locator
- Seamless multi-ticket management
- Support for Apple Pay and other digital wallets
- Better user account management
Wildbound Trips
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
NY Waterway
No in-app purchases
Wildbound Trips
- Wildbound Plus$4.991 Year
- Leave a tip$1.99
- Buy me a coffee$4.99
- Chip in for gas$9.99
Questions
Is NY Waterway free?
Is Wildbound Trips free?
Do NY Waterway or Wildbound Trips have ads?
Which is updated more often, NY Waterway or Wildbound Trips?
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