Go-To App: TripIt

Make it easier to keep track of your travel itineraries on the go and get gate change alerts while still on the plane.

Trip it (free) and TripIt Pro ($49/year) are great tools for organizing and managing your travel itineraries. You can either forward confirmation emails yourself or link your email for automatic forwarding, and TripIt will assemble a master trip itinerary. Each itinerary includes dates, times, seat assignments, and confirmation numbers for flights, car rentals, hotels, and restaurants, along with directions, maps, and weather information.

You can easily edit plans or add information yourself, as well as share your itinerary with individuals or on social media. You can view your trips on your smartphone, tablet, and computer, and can even synch them with your electronic calendar. Need to be picked up at the airport? Share your plans with your driver and enable a smooth rendezvous.

Upgrading to TripIt Pro gives you real-time flight alerts and arrival and connection summaries, notification of better seat availability, possible refunds, and alternate flight options. Knowing the gate of your connecting flight while still on the plane can be very helpful, especially when time is tight. In my experience, TripIt alerts have been more timely and more accurate than alerts generated by the airline itself.

I have also found TripIt to be very helpful when planning a longer trip, as it helps me visualize itinerary gaps (no hotel planned for Friday night) and travel distances (airport is much farther away from my hotel than I had realized). Mostly I appreciate having a master itinerary that I didn't have to create myself.

While TripIt is my current go-to favorite trip application, I have recently started using Kayak Trips as well. Stay tuned for a nose-to-nose comparison!