What really makes you a professional traveler? Is it the hours in a week you spend on the road or in the air? Is it how you travel when you do travel? Or is it how organized you are when you do travel?
I submit that all of the above may be the answer in a way. I’m not discounting the amazing poetry of watching a road warrior fly gracefully through security with the greatest of ease while maintaining a pained smile on his face for the awkward among us. But there really aren’t a lot of surprises you encounter getting into the airport. You know your bag has to be a certain weight. You know your liquids can’t be above a certain size and absolutely no weapons. You know that they want you to take off your shoes, jackets, and belts unless you are going through Pre-check. And yes as lame as it is, your laptop has to be out in its own box. It’s just how it has been for the past 13 years.
The surprises instead come on just before departure with a gate change or delayed flight. Or maybe we’re at our destination airport. Here comes the scramble to find the car reservation confirmation number or the address for the hotel so we can give it to the cab driver.
How about trying to send five emails to the seven family members you are visiting? Did you remember to tell them all everything they needed to know? Probably not. So what can I do about it?
There’s a free travel app called TripIt. It organizes everything for you into a master itinerary and provides maps, weather, and traffic details along the way. The easy-to-use interface allows you to share your itinerary with friends and family and syncs everything with your calendar. So next time you have a whale of a trip planned or maybe just a small trip but you want to be organized. Make the app do the work for you. You might find that vacation isn’t all that stressful after all.
(I did not write this blog on TripIt for compensation of any kind. Nor do they know that I’m writing it. So… take it from a fellow traveler and enjoy your trip!)
