For many of those compulsively organized people out there (like me), managing your travel plans consists of keeping all of the confirmation letters in your inbox or printing confirmation letters -- sorry, Earth. I recently tested out the prowess of TripIt and was pleasantly surprised. TripIt is an online system that magically creates an itinerary and organizes your travel plans.
The process is quite simple. Each time you receive a confirmation letter via email (hotel, car rental, airline, OpenTable, etc.), forward it to plans@tripit.com to create your itinerary. In addition, TripIt provides you with maps, directions, weather information and more. Travelers can access their TripIt itinerary online at www.tripit.com or on their mobile device. This is obviously the main appeal for travelers - being able to access their plans via Android, BlackBerry and iPhone apps, or the mobile site, m.tripit.com.
I did encounter a few glitches with the system. I flew into Denver International Airport and stayed at Hotel Monaco in downtown Denver. TripIt didn’t recognize it as being Hotel Monaco in Denver, but rather Hotel Monaco in San Francisco. The directions from the airport had me driving all the way back to California. Also, TripIt was unable to import two of my recent hotel reservations. It looks as though it was a formatting issue or perhaps they weren’t one of the supported vendors through TripIt. On the positive side, you can always add a reservation to your account manually.
Overall, TripIt is an amazing tool that keeps travelers organized. No more printing of confirmation letters or searching through your inbox to find those confirmations. Organized traveler = happy traveler.
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