The Wandering Chicken

Traveling with the iPhone | TripIt

The iPhone is simply the greatest piece of technology I’ve ever owned. Sure, it drops calls and has spotty coverage, but who wants to talk on the phone anyway? What makes Apple’s device so vital is its combination of simplicity and power.

When the iPhone was introduced, the ability to manage your contacts and calendar and send emails from your phone was hardly new. Blackberry users had enjoyed those capabilities for years. Web browsing was hardly revolutionary either. Ditto listening to music and watching video. What made/makes the iPhone so much better is just how good and how easy the experience is (try surfing the web on a Blackberry). The introduction of Apps only upped the ante, and competitors have been scrambling, and mostly failing, to catch up.

In particular, the iPhone has fundamentally changed travel. There’s no longer any need to lug around your laptop on personal trips unless you’re planning to do some heavy duty work. And who wants to do that when you’re sipping Mai Tais on the beach in Maui or romancing your sweetheart in New York? Don’t want to carry around twenty guidebooks while you’re backpacking around Europe? You’re in luck. Basically everything you ever needed for travel, well, “there’s an app for that.”

However, finding worthwhile apps for the iPhone remains a challenge. The introduction of the Genius functionality helped, but it’s still difficult to find truly useful apps. This is particularly true for travel-related apps where there are literally thousands of travel management tools, location-based search applications, information guidebooks, camera apps and more. And some of aren’t cheap.

I’m here to help. I waste an inordinate amount of time searching for and spending money on travel-oriented apps. Most aren’t very good. Others are absolutely essential, so much so it’s hard for me to figure how I managed without them. Kind of like an ATM.

One such app is TripIt. It’s not an iPhone app so much as a valuable web service for which the iPhone is the primary delivery mechanism. TripIt is the essential travel management tool. It’s so simple and so handy, it’s hard to believe it actually works. But work it does and beautifully and seamlessly.

Here’s the gist. Say you book a flight on American Airlines. That confirmation email you get? Forward it to your TripIt account. Ditto hotel and rental car confirmations. TripIt does the rest. Somehow it reads your confirmations, groups them together and translates them into a simple all-in-one itinerary. It’s amazing. I have no idea how it works, but it does. Everything you need is right there - flight info, confirmation numbers, phone numbers, addresses. Google Maps integration provides directions from the airport to the hotel (and vice versa). The service also offers local restaurant and attractions suggestions. Multiple destinations, flights, hotels, etc.? No problem. And if you want to add, change or edit your itinerary, it’s extremely easy to do on the TripIt website. Oh, and with one click you can export it all directly into your calendar. Of course, once you sync your TripIt account with your iPhone app, it’s all right there at your fingertips. Trust me, you’ll never know how you traveled without it.

Did I mention that both the service and the app are free?* Yeah, there’s that.

TripIt also incorporates a number of social features which allow you to share itineraries with friends and family, colleagues and travel partners. You can also make your itineraries public if for some reason you want to make your whereabouts known to the broader TripIt universe. I don’t use these personally, but I could see how they might be useful (the sharing with friends part at least).

That’s a lot of commentary to reach one simple suggestion: Get TripIt. Now.

To sign up for TripIt, visit the website at www.tripit.com.

Download the iPhone app

* TripIt does offer a premium service for $69 per year. The premium service delivers flight alerts, alternate flight recommendations, the ability to manage all of your rewards programs, and I’m not sure what else. I haven’t upgraded yet, but I suspect I will. $69 isn’t much for the basic service, frankly, and out of appreciation and my desire for TripIt to succeed, I’ll happily give them my money.