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As your Summer travel plans take shape, you may be wondering how to keep your schedule organized. When you make a reservation you can print out your confirmation or email it to yourself but keeping track of travel plans can be a challenge.
TripIt is a free service that can coordinate all of your travel plans into one itinerary for you to access easily on the web or from an app on your smartphone. TripIt eliminates the need to hunt for your travel information, it compiles an itinerary for you and keeps it easily accessible.
Using TripIt
To use TripIt, head to tripit.com and sign up for an account. When you make travel plans and receive email confirmations, you can forward them to [email protected]. TripIt will then take that information and prepare an itinerary for you. Within a few minutes you will receive an email response that your itinerary is ready, complete with a link to it.
Your TripIt itinerary includes relevant information such as flight information, confirmation numbers, hotel check-in and check-out times, local maps and weather information. You can see the cost of the travel and the site where you booked your trip.
TripIt is available for travelers worldwide. The service works with 3000 travel sites, including hotel, flight, rental car, parking, rail, cruise, concert, restaurant reservations and others, though not all travel sites are covered.
In your TripIt profile you can adjust your settings, adding email, social media and other accounts to be used with TripIt. You can authorize TripIt to email your itinerary to others and post your travel plans on Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites.
You can link to your online calendar to TripIt so your plans are automatically added to your calendar. You can also add notes to your itinerary to supplement your travel information.
Here’s a helpful video showing how TripIt works:
TripIt Pro
Although TripIt is a free service, a Pro version is available with extra features, which you can sample for free for 30 days. If you decide to continue using TripIt Pro, the cost is $49/year.
TripIt Pro alerts you to flight delays, cancellations and gate changes. If your flight is cancelled or delayed, the Pro service will suggest alternative flights that have available seats. You can also create an Inner Circle of email addresses to automatically alert others of your travel plans.
You can also use TripIt Pro to keep track of your frequent flyer and other loyalty program points. Link your frequent flyer, Amtrak Guest Rewards, car rental, hotel and other rewards programs to see how many points you have earned and which rewards are available for you to redeem.
Apps
TripIt has apps available that will link your smartphone and iPad to your TripIt account. The app automatically downloads your itineraries so you can view them from your mobile device.
The TripIt App is available free for:
- iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch at the iTunes App Store
- Android phones at Google Play
- Windows Phones at Windows Marketplace
An ad-free version of the TripIt app is available in the iTunes App Store and Google Play for $3.99.
Bottom Line
If your Summer plans include travel, check out TripIt to help you organize your trip!
Have you tried TripIt? Do you find organizing trips a challenge? Let us know in the Comments section below!
* Hannover Rathaus image by Spreng Ben
** Papeete image by Pillotage
This is an interesting tool Carolyn, am sure most of us will find it useful during our vacation plans. Hope to make use of it soon as I need a vacation 🙂
Thanks for sharing.
Hi Praveen, Yes, you definitely deserve a vacation. Perhaps trying out TripIt Pro is the best excuse for taking your vacation? 😉
Well, I guess I better get on the stick and actually plan a vacation, huh? Sounds pretty cool especially if you can organize your daily activities as to when you need to show up and do what.
Have you used it?
Hi Bill, Yes, I have used TripIt for years. I traveled quite a bit when I was living in England so TripIt came in very handy.
One time I was traveling to Florida for a wedding and when I arrived, I couldn’t find my confirmation of my rental car in my email. I called a friend to see if she could find it for me, but it turned out I hadn’t made a reservation. I was in the middle of a move so I guess I overlooked that detail. She made a reservation for me (she was a travel agent in a former life) so it wan’t a problem, but by using TripIt I can avoid these oversights.
Yes, Bill, you should plan your vacation, to try out TripIt, if for no other reason! 😉
Oh, how I long for a nice holiday trip!
If you’re a frequent traveller, TripIt Pro’s alert for flight changes & cancellations is definitely worth some $$!
Hi Helene, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! You’re absolutely right, if you’re a frequent traveler, the $49/year is a great investment. You could save more than that with some of the features that TripIt Pro offers!
I keep asking myself Carolyn, what will they come up with next. This is just too cool.
For people who travel a lot, how convenient is this? I mean seriously, to have everything all in one place because we all know that there is a lot of paperwork involved when you travel and keeping up with everything. I do love convenience.
You’re the queen for keeping up on top of great new apps and services. Thanks again Carolyn. You do not disappoint.
~Adrienne
Hi Adrienne, I’m so glad you enjoyed finding out about TripIt. The service isn’t new, I’ve been using it for years, but I do think it’s a fantastic tech service so I wanted to share it with Wonder of Tech readers.
TripIt makes organizing your trips so much easier and convenient. How great is that?
Thanks for stopping by and sharing this post, Adrienne!
Hi Carolyn,
This is the coolest app I’ve ever seen. And, soooo personal. I’ve sent this to everyone I know. It is perfect. Great discovery.
Hi Ann, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I’m so glad you like this service. If you’re a traveler, you will find TripIt to be very useful. Happy travels, Ann! 🙂
I won’t be needing it this summer (will be in my tent all summer), but for my trip to the US (hopefully a trip I’ll be doing next year) I’ll be needing the pro version 🙂
Hi Jens, You’re right, you probably don’t need TripIt for a camping trip, but it would be a useful resource for a trip to the US for you. I hope you are able to visit the US next year, Jens! 🙂
I love this Carolyn. I have heard of this, but never really looked into it further and when we travel having stuff planned out is always last minute. We camp allot and we love to discover everything in the surrounding areas, so having alternate stuff planned out on our itinerary is invaluable. I think this would be great tool to have especially for parents with young kids to avoid carry paper with you everywhere. Thanks for the share and I already started using it.
Hi Sonia, I am so glad this was helpful to you. I use TripIt a lot. I just used it for a weekend away with my husband and it was very helpful to keep all of our reservations sorted.
Happy travels!
Wow, Carolyn! This sounds fantastic and I will definitely check it out. I almost missed this post, because there’s like 50 blogs I need to follow and some weeks it’s tough 🙂
Thank you for the info. One more thing I need to add on my list to check out 🙂
Hi Sylviane, I think you’ll really enjoy this service. If you travel, then it’s an easy way to keep track of your travel plans. You can have handy reference of your plans anywhere you have Internet.
Happy travels! 🙂
Hi Carolyn
Thank you for doing this post as I keep seeing TripIt mentioned and did not know what is was, and now I do!
For about 10 years I traveled a lot for work. I would have loved this then. At the moment I am not doing much travel but I plan to so certainly will be using TripIt.
Thanks for an informative post.
Sue
Hi Sue, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Yes, TripIt has been out for a while, and it continues to be a useful, free service, especially for those who travel. I hope you are able to use this for a fun trip, Sue!
Hi Carolyn, first of all congrats on appearing in the Philadelphia Inquirer, what a nice achievement.
I heard of Tripit before but I didn’t realize all of the cool features that come along with it. I’ll give it a try next time I plan a trip. One thing I would be cautious about is posting my travel plans on social media, but I can see how someone who is traveling for business can take advantage of this option. Thanks for the review.
Hi Ileane, Thank you! The Wonder of Tech has been on The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website each week since October of last year. You can find it by clicking the link on my website or by going to Your Tech in the Business section of philly.com.
Yes, I agree, posting travel plans on social media sites can alert people that you’re not home. But if you’re attending a conference and want to post just for your friends attending the conference, you will find it very easy to do that using TripIt! 🙂