This App Is The Single Best Way To Keep Track Of All Your Travel Plans

Whenever I book a trip, I get tons of emails with booking information from airlines, hotels, car rental companies, and more, but they often end up just getting lost in my inbox. It can be one of the most frustrating parts of traveling.

Enter TripIt.

This website and app organizes travel plans into an itinerary, allowing users to see all of their trip details in one place. It sounds simple, and yet it's life-changing for people who travel often.

The idea is simple: After you've signed up, simply forward confirmation emails to "plans@tripit.com" and TripIt will automatically create an itinerary for you. Or even better, you can set up the automatic forwarding process and you don't have to do anything to set up your itinerary.

Log in through either the app or the website, and you'll see all of your trip plans set up in one place. It also syncs everything with your calendar, making it super easy to view and share your travel plans with everyone else. You can send your itinerary to friends, family, or co-workers who want to know your travel plans.

Besides the obvious things, like flight and hotel confirmations, TripIt can keep track of everything from train passes and car rentals to movie tickets and dinner reservations. You can also add in notes and plans about people you need to see and things you want to do. The itineraries also contain helpful information about the destination, like maps, weather forecasts, and more.

And all of this is completely free.

The company offers an upgraded service called TripIt Pro, which costs $49 per year. In addition to everything you get with TripIt, TripIt Pro offers things like mobile alerts telling you when your flight is delayed, canceled, or had a gate change; VIP privileges to other companies like Hertz; and notifications that tell you when you're eligible for flight refunds. It's like getting a full-time personal travel assistant who is constantly monitoring your travel plans.

Most avid travelers know about TripIt, but I've found that it still hasn't quite hit the mainstream yet. And that's a shame, because it's one of the best travel sites out there.