Using TripIt to Stay Organized

Posted on 25. Oct, 2009 by Steph in Resources

As I’ve said before, I’m a fan of having an old-fashioned pen and paper travel notebook.  However, once you move from the brainstorming phase to making concrete plans you’re going to need a system to handle all of the electronic reservations and information coming your way. TripIt is an online tool that can help you stay organize by consolidating all of your travel plans in one place.

The way TripIt works is very simple. Once you’ve signed up for an account, you simple forward all of your travel reservations (flights, hotels, car rentals etc.) to plans@tripit.com. The software reads your email, picks out the important bits (dates, times, confirmation numbers) and organizes your reservations into a master itinerary.

There are several advantages to storing your reservations online.  With your reservations organized in TripIt you can log in and view them from any computer or handheld device. You can pull up a piece of information quickly without sifting through a slew of emails or printouts. The information can also be exported to Outlook or iCal or simple emailed to your worrying mother.

There is a social networking aspect to TripIt as well. You can network with friends to see who is going to be where when. Multiple accounts can access an itinerary, so if you are organizing a trip for several people you can easily keep them abreast of the details.

As someone who has wasted time frantically searching Gmail for a rogue reservation number, I can assure you that getting organized early on will save you a lot of grief later.

Tags: planning