Adventuring to new cities and countries is supposed to be fun. Standing in an airport or parking garage searching your email account for your confirmation email from a car rental company is not fun. "Was it Avis? Budget? Priceline? No I think we used Budget for the last trip to see the kids. I think we did this one through the rewards program with the credit card." Ugh.
A solution to this problem is an app called TripIt. TripIt combines flight bookings, hotel reservations, rental car confirmations and more in a day-by-day itinerary. I have been using this app for years and while not perfect, it has saved our family on a few occasions.
How it works is after you set up an account with TripIt, you forward your email confirmations you receive to a TripIt email account. Next time you open the app on your phone the app is (usually) smart enough to read the itineraries and organize them into trips. It matches the dates of the flights with the hotels and associated cars or even some activities and combines them into one named trip. Very handy.
But, as we know there are many more aspects to a trip than just organizing the information and confirmation emails. And while this solution isn't perfect (it doesn't do a great job of reading the confirmation email from a Mom and Pop Bed & Breakfast in the Adirondacks) it will provide some sanity by keeping all your information in one spot. And maybe save time along the way.