Best Tools for Organizing a Trip
The premise of this post in 2010 was that one device could replace the folder of printouts. That happened. What nobody predicted is that the problem moved: the trouble now is not carrying your details, it is that they are scattered across eleven apps and six inboxes.
Pick one place everything lands. That is the whole discipline and the tool matters less than the habit.
- TripIt still does the single most useful trick in travel software: forward it a confirmation email and it builds the itinerary for you, in order, with times and addresses. Free for that. It has outlasted almost everything else in this category for a reason.
- Your airline's own app beats any third party for the thing that actually goes wrong, which is a gate change or a cancellation. Push notifications from the airline arrive before the board updates.
- A plain notes file that you own, in something like Obsidian or just your phone's notes, for the things no booking system holds: the address of the place with no website, which platform the night train leaves from, what the taxi should cost.
Then make it work with no signal and no battery. This is where most setups fail.
- Screenshot every boarding pass, booking reference and visa. A screenshot needs no app, no login and no data.
- Keep one paper copy of the first night's address and a phone number. Immigration sometimes asks and a flat phone cannot answer.
- Download offline maps for the city before you fly, not in the airport queue.
The 2010 version of this post was a list of apps. The version that would have aged well was a list of failure modes, so that is what this is.
Part of the guide to packing and organisation.