Consolidating Travel Details with TripIt

I'm sitting in the Denver airport (and quite pleased to have remembered my note to myself about tunneling through ad-laden interception proxy) with lots to think and blog about after this year's Midwinter meeting. It was a very productive meeting, but I am still in "travel mode" so I thought I'd mention a new service called TripIt that has made this travel notably easier.

TripIt is "a personal travel assistant that automatically organizes all your travel plans." Getting started is easy: one just forwards confirmation e-mails from flights, lodging, airport shuttles, rental cars and the like to "plans@tripit.com" and the software starts adding all of this information into a consolidated itinerary. The software offers destination information such as maps and directions. The itinerary includes links to online check-in services and flight information. And you can do all of this without creating an account. If you do create an account, you can build a network of fellow travelers to see when you might be in the same location at the same time. (If I were to travel much, I can see where this would be a very handy "social networking" feature.)

For instance, you can see a public view of my recent itinerary for the OLE Project and ALA Midwinter trip. (TripIt didn't understand the ALA travel service confirmation e-mails for the lodging arrangements, so I had to enter that by hand.) This view is missing my confirmation numbers and other private details, but it is a useful view to share with spouses and office managers. If you join TripIt and want to connect networks, let me know.