A Must for Travelers

[Jonathan Mosen]

OK, this site seriously, and I mean really seriously, rocks!
 
The site is called TripIt and is at http://www.tripit.com
<blocked::http://www.tripit.com/> . They have a mobile version which is very
accessible and can be used on mobile devices, at http://m.tripit.com
<blocked::http://m.tripit.com/> .
 
It's purpose is to take your travel reservations and put them on a simple
web page with enhanced information that is relevant such as weather,
directions to your destination etc.
 
It's very easy to get started. You don't even have to register, just forward
the confirmation e-mails that you get from airlines, car rental agencies,
Orbitz, Travelocity, Amtrak, Eurostar and other travel companies and
websites to plans at tripit.com <blocked::mailto:plans at tripit.com> . Tripit
parses the e-mails, including attached PDFs, and builds an itinerary for
you, complete with historical temperatures, maps, and links to information
about your destinations from Wikipedia and other sites. For flights, Tripit
adds links to check flight status and to check-in.
 
Obviously the fact that this thing can take the PDF files and extract the
key info from them has some potential accessibility benefits.
 
I've used it with Air new Zealand, Southwest, Hilton, and US Airways so far,
and it got every single itinerary perfect.
 
Itineraries are editable and you can add notes. The first time you send an
email to Tripit you get a reply with a link to verify your account.
Verification is extremely simple, just enter your name and choose a password
and you're all signed up. 

 

If you add your family, colleagues and friends to Tripit they can share your
itineraries and you'll get "Closeness Messages" from Tripit when you cross
paths with friends. I can see this being quite useful when a number of us
are heading to a convention.

 

They have a "Tripit To Me" email bot that responds to commands like "get
trip", so you can retrieve your enhanced itinerary and save it to a file if
you want. It will also sync in real time with Outlook 2007 which of course
will then sync to your mobile device.

 

So the bottom line if you have Outlook 2007, is that once set up, you book
your travel, forward the confirmation e-mails, and it all appears in your
Outlook Calendar and then in other mobile devices.

 

Hope this is useful, and if you try it, would be interested to hear how it
works for you.

 

Jonathan