gayletmom

I will be traveling to London, Paris and southern France with DH and 4 kids in May & June. I'm gathering lots of useful info from multiple sources: guidebooks, forums, and various friends and websites. I'm going to plan a proposed itinerary and then we'll adjust on the go, as appropriate.

I would like to put together a small file of some sort on each neighborhood. For example, for the Ile de la Cite/Ile St. Louis day I would include operating hours at Notre Dame, tips on which entrance to use, where to go and what to see when we're inside, recommended restaurants, helpful hints about a lovely walk nearby, etc. I'd like to do the same for each of the various neighborhoods we'll visit and have them accessible so that if we decide to go to, say, Montmartre for the day my info will be at my fingertips.

Another Mom on TA mentioned that she did this in hard copy form with a sheet or two per neighborhood. I like a hard copy and would also like to be able to input the data on my desktop at home then access it on my ipad or iphone (we'll be traveling with a couple of these) .

Does anyone have a good system for organizing all of the valuable info that is available and then accessing it?

abram

I don't have a smart phone or a laptop, so I compile everything into a word document and print it.

Iowa_Redhead

I use Excel to organize everything. You could easily use a file for each region or you could use just one file if you're comfortable with a lot of worksheet tabs.

For my China trip I had worksheet tabs for:
Packing List

Credit card info - to keep track of the collect phone numbers incase a card was lost/stolen and if I had called to tell them I would be traveling yet.

Schedule - What city on what dates. Very general info, but it helped me keep track of where I was going to be, when I would need hotels and trains, etc.

Hotel information - there was a section for each city and I just kept deleting out potential hotels until I was down to the three I stayed at. The info included dates reserved, hotel name, phone numbers, address (English and Chinese for this trip), if breakfast was included or not, cancelation dates, etc.

To Do - City _____ - Each city got it's own tab of interesting places. Within each worksheet I listed the place, district (easier to group places that way), opening times/days, admission fee, misc notes and a rough estimate of the time needed (1-2 hours vs all day, etc). In the misc notes column I put in any directions for getting there such as Metro lines/stops, dress codes, etc.

Flights/Trains - I listed all of my flights with flight number, departure and arrival times, and seat numbers if I knew them. Below that I listed the trains I wanted to take within China. The train information included the train numbers, times, and the rates for the class of ticket I wanted.

Phrases - I listed a ton of words and phrases in English and then found the translations online in Chinese characters and pasted those in.

Costs - As I paid for things ahead of time I entered in the prices and could keep an eye on my budget easily.



Every trip gets an Excel file that is slightly different, but the idea stays the same. Use worksheets to organize similar information. Depending on how much info you want to organize, a different file for each region and a file for overall info might be easier than one file for the whole trip.

suze

I don't travel with electronics. So I gather my information, print it out, and use 8-1/2x11" clear folders to store things in categories (one for each city or country).

hispanic

There are a number of sites out there that allow you to create your own itinerary and plan out your trip. Here's some that I know of:
- http://triptrace.com/
- http://triporama.com/
- http://tripline.net/
- http://tripcart.com/
- http://travelmuse.com/
- http://travelmob.com/
- http://stay.com/
- http://goplanit.com/
- http://gogobot.com/
- http://everytrail.com/
- http://duffelup.com/

Just looking quickly, the goplanit home page mentions the following:
"Access your trips from your mobile phone and search for nearby things to do. Or, print out a travel guide and take it with you wherever you go."

Might be a good pace to start. I'd be interested to know if any of these speak to you. Good luck.


Mike....

Iowa_Redhead

hispanic,

Do you know if any of those sites can be saved to a device and accessed without internet? I'm always afraid of spotty internet access while traveling and like to save my info to my netbook (for details when I'm in the hotel room figuring out my plan for the next day) and onto my digital book for quick access while I'm out and about. The book shows a pdf version of each Excel worksheet so that I can have access to everything, even if I don't want to print it all out.

Thanks! Those sites could be fun, I'm just so leery of not having an internet signal when I need it.

spcfa

I think you should check into Microsoft Office's OneNote. It can gather info from various sources and also has some sharing benefits. It's part of certain Office suites (packages). You may already have it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_OneNote

Leah12

I always put all info on a excel and carry a printed copy of it. For things like air or train timings or other important things I put a reminder on my phone.

nomikal

I myself use tripit for travel itineraries. You simply send tripit your confirmation emails and flight,hotel,and any other reservations are added automatically. You can also add additional information for each day of your trip and invite others to do the same. When your done you can print your complete itinerary with all your conf#'s, depart/arrival times for transportation and lodging, and theres even an android and Iphone app for smartphone.

I usually print everything out and also have a bunch of digital copies of my confirmations in PDF format and place that on my phone and netbook that I bring with me. And use the smartphone app if I have wifi or a simcard w/data.