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You’ve got flights and accommodations. Directions to get to your accommodations and instructions for what to do WHEN you get there. You’ve booked tours with ticket information and directions on where to meet your guide. Lawsy!  All the details involved in traveling!

No matter where you go, or how long your trip is, you have confirmation numbers, flight numbers, and membership account numbers. Plus there’s check-ins, boarding, and connecting flight info.

Listen, I’m not JUST an organized person – I aspire to be that way. For instance, the day before I leave for a trip, I gather all my flight information together and try to make it easily accessible on my mobile device. Then I double-check that it’s still there the night before the trip.

So, when I’m at the airport kiosk getting my boarding pass (why print at home people? why?) or printing the tags for my (yes) checked bags – I should be able to whip that info out.

But I fail every dang time – crushing my inner organizational self.

I can’t find it – don’t remember where I saved it – is it in photos or email or text? It’s crazy-making! If I’m traveling with my husband, things get a teeny bit tense when he starts with the “oh for fox sake!” while I’m frantically searching. By the time I find the confirmation number, I’m completely stressed. Hate it! 

I finally started to wonder if there’s an App for that? And – Yes! There IS an App! In fact – there are multiple travel Apps.

I present to you a list of all the apps and ways I’ve discovered to organize those lists of travel logistics details at your fingertips. I hope they transform your travel experience as much as they have mine.

(Spoiler Alert! Some of these Apps will even text you with updated info like updated gate info. Very helpful for not landing, trekking to your next gate for a connecting flight only to find that the gate has changed. So cool! You’re welcome.

Tripit 

This is the App I’ve used for a few domestic and international trips. I first downloaded the App and did the basic set up before leaving for a trip to Central Europe. Right before my trip, all hell broke loose in my world. SOP for me pre-travel. The initial set up was all I had time for, and I didn’t understand all the App offered.

The trip included a layover in Copenhagen and I headed for a lounge to wait in comfort with free Wifi. Right away, my phone came alive with text messages from a source I didn’t recognize. I assumed it was the airline since the texts contained updated gate information. Then – ninety minutes later, another text came in with the same info but this time clearly from the airline.

That’s when I realized the first messages came from TripIt ninety minutes before the airline alerted me. Plus when I turned on my phone at my final destination (I set up an international plan before I left home), I immediately received a text with the arrival gate and baggage carousel for luggage pickup.

This information is golden for me. I have a little travel anxiety about arriving at unfamiliar places, and not knowing the language, what to expect or where to find things. Especially when traveling solo. I eventually figure things out but not having the slight belly burn while wondering how all the moving parts are going to fit together? Ahhhhh.

Can you relate?

Note: I use Tripit Pro, at $49/year but you may be satisfied with alerts from the airline and stick with the free Tripit plan. You’ll still be able to organize your travel plans and have a master itinerary that you can sync with your calendar. Plus it will give you transportation options, airport, and terminal maps, and let you share your plans with others.

But with the Pro version you’ll get flight alerts, seat upgrade alerts, check-in reminders, alternate flight searching, check-in reminders, “Go NOW” airport alerts, security wait times, and baggage claim info. You can even use the App to track your mileage reward programs and get weather updates.

Whether you use the free or Pro version, the quickest way to get your travel details into the App is to forward any trip related confirmation emails to [email protected] and everything will be auto-populated for you. There’s also an option to manually add the information or let Tripit scour your email for any travel related items.

What the App doesn’t have is a way to access information about booking hotels or ground transportation. But it does give you airport lounge information, via LoungeBuddy, and a way to reserve and pay for access from the App. You can find all the information you need at their website, and download the App for iOS or Android.

TripCase

Similar to Tripit is the app TripCase. I’m trying this one on my next trip. Again, forward the travel emails you receive to [email protected] to get your itinerary created. You can also add it manually on the iOS or Android App or the website. As soon as you download the App, you’ll notice an offer to sign up for AirHelp – at no cost.

The App tells you that, via AirHelp, delayed, canceled, or overbooked flights might entitle you for up to $700. And it’s free to file a claim. On the App, just hit Accept or Decline to sign up for AirHelp, then you’ll move to an option to turn on One Touch access to the App. And you’re in!

Another unique – but not free – feature TripCase has is a way to track your receipts. It’s $5.99/year with a free month when you sign up.  You have to put PDF’s of your receipts into the App, but that’s easy with a free app like this one I use.

Once inside TripCase, you’ll see the standard three parallel lines at the top left which takes you to ‘command central.’ Access the receipt feature there, upcoming trips, or switch to a timeline view. This view opens your itinerary with flight numbers and confirmation numbers all in one place.

And then there’s something called Phone Numbers. When I clicked on this link – a list of flights I have in upcoming itineraries opened. Clicking on the right arrow brought up a list of airline phone numbers separated by domestic, US international, outside the US, and then by country. The possibility that you might need that info gives me a massive HEADACHE – but in reality – shit happens when you travel. So be prepared!

TripCase lets you share your travel info, as long as you give the app access to your contacts. Select sharing and enter a contact or email to have your itinerary sent. The App will save the contact under the Contact section for future use.

You’ll notice an Inbox option on the menu, and once you’ve forwarded emails with your reservations and confirmations, these will show up in the inbox. Including boarding passes!

But wait – you still have to print out your luggage tags because we CHECK OUR BAG!

Lambus

There’s a new app in town created with a focus on group travel. It has some great features that make moving in a Travel Pack so much easier. Remember that email the AirBnB owner sent with those crazy access instructions? Where is that, and did you send it to everyone in the group yet?

That’s where Lambus shines, according to their website. You can upload all your trip documents to the App, and anyone that’s part of the travel group can access all the information in one place. There are other cool features to help group travel go smoothly – like a way to track expenses for everyone. You can even PAY using Paypal or other apps through Lambus.

Another problem Lambus solves is accessing all this information offline – no need for Wifi that might be missing at that critical moment. “I had some bars a second ago.”

The App is available to download on iOS and Android.

Kayak + Momondo

You’re probably familiar with the travel booking site Kayak, but did you know you can use the site and it’s App to track your travel details? Plus, Kayak lets you book flights, hotels, and tours. So not only can you organize your itineraries in one place – but you can plan your itinerary with Kayak too.

You can do the same thing on Momondo that you can on Kayak. Website and mobile App both – plus they look amazingly familiar. Either option allows you to book flights, hotels, and rental cars – then create a trip itinerary for FREE.

If you regularly use either of these two search engines – start using their My Trips feature to get all your details in one place – even if you didn’t book it through their site.

Google Maps and Google.com/travel

I don’t know if you’re a Google Maps user, but I use it almost daily to get around town and avoid as many traffic jams as possible. And, I’m devoted to Google Maps when I’m traveling – especially international travel. But I never used was the App Google Trips because I never knew it existed!

And now it’s going away forever. Dammit – it looked so cool!!

But Google is putting some of the great functions that Trips included in Google Search and Google Maps. There’s a lot of good stuff here – but you need a Google or Gmail account. Navigate over to Google.com/travel, and you’ll see a menu down the pages’ left side with Trips at the top. Click, and any trips you have booked will show up – thanks to emailed confirmations.

You can use the site to book travel, accommodations, and tours on your trip. But on your phone, you need to open the Google app and search for whatever you named the trip. You’ll see something returned with your search saying “View your trip details” with all your reservations listed.

Using the Google App and Maps, you can navigate your trip on the ground as well. If you take the time to create Maps of the places you’ll visit at your destination and save them – you can access them with or without Wifi.

Evernote + Google Drive/Docs

I’ve used Evernote for a long time, and it’s a great (and free in the basic version) way to organize your travel itinerary in one place. You won’t be able to make any travel plans from here – but that’s ok with me.

Evernote also has a camera feature that will allow you to take a picture of your travel confirmations and documents. Or you can upload documents directly using the paperclip icon in the formatting bar. It’s a simple way to get yourself organized.

Google Docs (in Google Drive) is another way to do free, basic trip organization. Download the Google Drive App and set up a new folder for your trip. Once in the folder, open a new google doc – and start typing. You can also upload documents and photos directly to your travel folder.

Get it together with Travel Apps

One way or another – incorporate one of these apps into your life for big trips, business trips, and everything in between. They’re simple to use in their free and paid versions. Otherwise, like my husband just did, you’ll be emailing your itinerary to someone you know with a printer to have 2-5 pages printed out with your information. (Wait til he gets home…we’re havin’ a tutorial!)

Oh and the funny thing is – once he sent me that email, Tripit picked it up and I received flight alerts for his whole trip! I texted the info to him ending each text with an “I’m begging you to download the App!!”

If you’ve used one of these apps on a trip or organized yourself another way, please comment below – let’s build a list of best practices for how to do this! And sign up for the Later Letter, my newsletter, to get premium information to make your ever-lovin’, bag-checkin’ travel life easier!  This is Part one of a series of articles on travel planning – check out the next one here.

Safe Travels,

Minimalism. The whole world’s gone overboard about underdoing and under-having in every aspect of life.

How about you – do you dream of a minimalist lifestyle, or have you nailed it already? Good for you if you’ve managed to suck all the extra tidbits out of your home and closets. But what about when you pack for a trip?

Maybe you abandon all minimalism and pack like your going overland in a covered wagon? “Throw it all in and strap ‘er down!” Hey, my overpacking tendency exists at the cellular level, so no packing shaming here. You probably just haven’t thought about using a minimalist mindset for packing.

Well, I embrace zero minimalism in my life – except in packing. Take a look at my real life closet.

Accckkkk! A massive jumbled cram of clothes, shoes, and shit.

 Not a shred of minimalism lives here. But I don’t pack like I closet!

I mean, I USED to be a severe over-packer, but that changed long ago. I pack like a minimalist now – or at least that’s my mindset while I’m packing. It’s a trick I use, along with some alcohol-related rituals, to get around my extreme hatred for packing. I don’t know why it works – but I won’t question anything that helps me scale my packing brick wall.

Full transparency – this always happens. I’ll be waist deep packing for a trip and pause to mentally tie all the clothes in my suitcase, thus far, to my trips’ agenda. That’s when things start to get a little foggy, and I start reaching for just two more of these…and maybe a couple of those…

No that’s not the mindset of a minimalist packer, but someone who practices the art of doing it – imperfectly. Here’s what I do.

One Bag Travel

The first step is to take only one bag. There’s no reason ever to bring more than one (unless it’s a road trip and you’re stuffing everything into the trunk of the car.) Lightly packing one bag for air travel isn’t difficult when you know the basics.

Note – you still have the escape hatch of packing miscellaneous things into a tote/small backpack and purse. (sigh of relief)

Here are the basic cheats I use, followed by an explanation for each one:

• Plan on wearing items multiple times.
• Make sure the clothes you take can recombine into a minimum of two outfits.
• Use a two-sided suitcase.
• Pack “hard” items together (shoes, toiletries, blow-dryer.) and clothes mostly together.
• Fit small clothes items in the nooks and crannies of the ‘hard’ things.

Embrace Repeated Wearing

Buried in my DNA is a mutant gene causing extreme sweat and anxiety if I try to wear something twice in one week. Serious as death here and it’s probably ground zero of my overpacking tendency.

But I was forever cured of over-packing by a trip I took in my mid-twenties. 

I was traveling with my best friend, who (to this day) practices ‘costume dressing’ – when everything you wear is part of an ensemble. Clothes, shoes, jewelry, and hair – all essential to the look. She would love to have packed it all in a steamer trunk.

The sheer quantity of her daily costume changes on the trip was epic. I do not want to downplay this. For breakfast: cute jammies, robe, slippers, hair tie. Walk to town after breakfast? Great earrings, hair tie, matching shorts + top, a shoulder draped sweater and cute loafers. Beach time? The suit, coverup, beach bag, adorbs straw hat, and – different hair tie and earrings.

All before 10 am.

It was an embarrassing and stressful experience. Everyone on the trip waited out the long costume changes and searched for a large vehicle and extra help to get her jumbo suitcase to the hotel. And no one cared what she was wearing from one minute to the next. It made a big fat negative impression on me that’s never faded.

After that, I vowed to travel light (and check my bag.) It took years for me to understand the trick is to re-wear things when traveling. So simple. A pair of jeans, shorts, or a skirt combined with a few tops can handle about anything you tackle while traveling. (Uh, go ahead and throw that versatile dress in your bag, too.)

Make sure you can create a minimum of two outfits out of everything you pack. One pair of pants can combine with at least two tops, or the top can combine with at least two bottoms. The absolute ideal? Go for the trifecta – one top with three different bottoms, etc.

But shoes? Yeah, that’s a problem. More about that later.

Two-Sided Suitcase

My personal preference is to use a hard-sided suitcase that lays completely flat when open. Each side comes with a strap to lock down your load and, even better – a cover that zips closed. Designate one side for packing shoes, toiletries, and blow-dryer (the “hard” items.) The other side is for clothes you roll to pack.

Inside + out of a hard-sided suitcase.

There’s more than one school of thought on clothes packing, but the most common are packing cubes or rolling your clothes. I love me some little organizing things, so when I learned about packing cubes, I had to experiment with them for a trip to Europe. I bought cheap ones at Marshall’s but threw most of them away when I arrived.

I’ve been rolling my clothes to pack for years. They fit well in a suitcase that way and come out with few wrinkles. If I can completely unpack when I get to my destination – wrinkles are pretty non-existent. I’ll bring a lightweight, portable clothes steamer for those ‘clothes-stay-in-suitcase’ trips.

But cubes can also minimize packing induced wrinkles, plus keep your clothes well organized and easily accessible. So why did I leave them in Europe and ‘roll’ home? I found them an extra step and a hassle without a huge benefit. When filled with clothes, they fit like puzzle pieces and fill your bag. There’s no space for those little extras that roll and squish into nooks.

What I liked were a few small sized and one medium-sized cube. I used small cubes for underwear, bras, Spanx, and socks. I could also use one for jewelry, hair ties, and other small items. The medium cube was perfect for t-shirts and tanks, but those are also items that roll down very small and smoosh into nooks well. It’s a toss-up.

In the end, I had to go with the fast-packing clothes rolling.

There’s also a trick to loading the side with your hard items. My toiletry bag always goes on the bottom of the compartment because it takes up room, it’s somewhat bulky and not squishy. The ‘bottom’ is the part of the bag just above the luggage wheels. Right next to the toiletry bag, I put my make-up bag and round hair brush + curling iron (Shhhhh, ok yes. I bring it.)

At the top of that side, I put shoes. Keep reading – I’m putting off my shoe discussion until a little later in the article. Packing shoes at the top creates many nooks, and they’re separated from my toiletry bag by my ever-loving-blow-dryer. I put my universal plug adapter in this area too, and any small cubes I’ve filled with camera equipment, extra cords, jewelry, and extra snacks for my food allergy intense lifestyle.

Packing in the Nooks

At this point, it might sound like this is irrelevant. Why would you need to put any clothes in the nooks and crannies of the hard items? Well, if you’ve packed any bulkier items that you can’t wear on the plane, they take up room. If you roll blouses and t-shirts and put them in your nooks – you’ll find room for those awkward, bulky things in the clothes side. (P.S. with packing cubes – that’s not going to be easy if you can even figure a way to do it.)

Using the nooks is sometimes a much more efficient way to pack than using small cubes and bags. Some items – like make-up are a no-go for the nooks. But think about grouping some small things in Ziploc bags and stuffing them inside shoes and between heels.

The Problem With My Damn Shoes

This is a hard one for me. In a perfect world, I would love to wear a pair/pack a pair but that never happens. I want to wear easy on/off shoes that are UBER comfortable for travel days. My remaining shoe choices rely entirely on a combo of my destination, the climate there, and my agenda.

If I’m walking and hiking outdoors, I’m going to bring some running shoes (those are plane worthy potential but not my first choice.) I’ll bring a feminine and sexy pair for day or nighttime wear. If there’s something on the agenda that I would look/feel stupid without heels – they’re going in the suitcase. And if there’s a beach involved – in go the flipflops.

That’s my shoe dilemma. If my suitcase is heavy – it’s the shoes. The best way to keep me from overpacking shoes is to be RIGID about not sacrificing comfort for style. If I’m holding the perfect pair of ADORABLE shoes in my hand but honestly know they will bring pain and blisters within 1-3 hours – it’s a hard no. They’re not coming.

But shoes are the kind of thing that create nooks – so in a situation where I know I’m going to pack more pairs than a minimalist might – I put a pair or two on the clothes side of my bag. Then I roll my clothes into the nooks they create.

Minimalism is a Mindset

A key point of minimalist packing is to pack what you NEED, not what you WANT, but this is where I veer off. I don’t need to pack a lot of clothes, but there’s going to be what I WANT in that suitcase.

For instance, I won’t stick to one color just because it minimizes what’s in my bag. And, if I need to bring a nice dress, I’ll try and take one that can be casual or dressy. But if I can’t – I’m taking the extra dress. Likewise, if part of my trip is a special day of hiking and it’s the only time I’ll need certain clothes – they’re coming with me. I won’t make do with other items.

I also pack things that work for multiple uses – like a pashmina for a wrap or a travel blanket. Or a blazer as a light jacket combined with a pashmina for warmth. Or just worn over a t-shirt or blouse.  

I do not bring stuff that sounds like cool travel toys I don’t need. Like a ‘special’ travel towel. It’s HIGHLY unlikely I’ll stay anywhere that doesn’t provide towels for me. Unless I’m headed to a beach on my trip – scratch that off my list.

What MUST Go in Your Carry-on 

While I check my suitcase, I always bring a tote/small backpack on the plane with my purse. My goal is to put my purse inside the tote/backpack, only taking it out on the plane and at my destination. But I’m willing to sacrifice that goal for a great reason.

That’s stuffing my carry-on with a change of clothes (clean undies), medications, toothbrush+paste, contact lens paraphernalia, and allergy safe snacks. And the reason is changing planes.

Is it just me or do direct flights seem to be occurring mainly on red-eyes these days? Red-eyes are tough to bounce back from as you get older, which I am, so I hate them and opt for plane changing routes.

That means it’s possible I’ll make the connecting flight – but my luggage won’t. So having all these things in my carry-on is non-negotiable. And yet…I ignored this rule recently – and it bit me immediately in the butt.

I was traveling to a conference and needed more ‘work equipment’ than I’d typically bring. So – I packed contact lens supplies, snacks, my laptop + notebooks in my carry-on. No change of undies or meds. Queue the disaster.

My first flight was late and I became the frantic sprinter through the concourse to my connecting flight. Although I made it – the last one on – my suitcase did not. I’ll never put my laptop in my checked bag, but a whole lot of other stuff could have migrated there on that trip. Lesson learned once and for all.

NOTE: if this happens to you – most airlines have the information for tracking a suitcase right on their mobile app. Make sure you keep your baggage claim ticket, log on, and input the number there. You’ll see exactly where your bag is and when it’s going to be on a flight to meet you. I arrived at midnight and, before the airline called me, I knew the exact flight my bag was coming on the next morning.

The bottom line in my packing is that I think like a minimalist without sacrificing the things I want and need. If I didn’t approach it this way, I don’t know if I could get over my extreme hatred of packing.

Plus there are many clever packing hacks out there! Every time I find a new article, like this one you might enjoy, I make a few changes to my routine (hence my packing cube experiment.) I shared my secrets to toiletry packing here. If you have any go-to tricks, please share them in the comments here!

And what’s your vote – soft-sided or hard-sided suitcase?

Safe Travels!