I like the idea of calendar. But with big timezone difference from CO to Europe, I worry about confusion of date. I assume you just use the in-country date and it worked out ok?
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Yes, it was a bit confusing at first as we were in PST before the trip and scheduling hotel check-in at like 11pm or whatever. But the calendar would automagically adjust to local time wherever we were.
Or you could probably manually set your phone’s time zone to the local country and make all your entries, then switch back to MST. Actually that sounds a lot easier and I think I’ll do that for our trip to Spain later this year.
I forget how I handled dates but I probably just anchored off the arrival plane’s scheduled landing time and date to make sure we weren’t off by a day anywhere. And then of course we’d double-check as needed to make sure we were on track.
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Flight times can be confusing. D just spent Christmas with a good friend in New Zealand, which is 18 hours ahead of us (next day, but 6 hours behind us). I had a chart with all her flights listed by both airport times and ‘local’ time, so we could track her flights (3 each way). Without the chart, no way!
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I’ll put in another plug for the TripIt app. It takes care of the timeline things automatically. One you sign up, it automatically pulls in all flight, hotel, etc. info from your confirmation emails. If it’s not automatic (often for things like attraction tickets), you just forward the email to the app and it pulls in all the information. On the app you can see everything, and you can add any information it missed. You can even upload documents to it. And you can share it with anyone you please.
It also gives you notifications before any trip, and every point on the trip. This actually came in handy for me because I got a hotel reservation the night before H was supposed to have a hip replacement out of town. Two weeks before his blood work showed he had CLL (leukemia) and it was postponed. I completely forgot about the hotel night, and if it wasn’t for TripIt reminding about my trip coming up, I would not have been able to cancel in time!
Oh and if the flights change, it notices and lets you know something is up. I believe the paid version it automatically. On my free version, I think it automatically took the airline email and created a warning that I needed to check something.
Another thing I like is that it tells you the date of the confirmation email. I plan months in advance and it can be a pain to scroll back, or search and find it if i have to. I actually added that date to my own summary sheet!
That being said, I still like to print out my own summary sheet. I found theirs to be a little cumbersome, and i like mine better. I have each day listed out and the important events. And it’s color coded. Super important (Flight #s, confirmation #s) are in dark red. Flight times are purple. Attractions we already have tickets for are in green, and things I have down to do that day, but are not written in stone - just ideas that fit logistically, but can be moved around or deleted, etc. are in orange. I can just glance at it and see everything I want to know all on 1 page (for a 7-10 day trip)
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Thanks. I may need to look at TripIt again. I think I have it partially set up.
When my husband does our google doc itineraries, he uses a format we’ve evolved to (don’t recall exact detail) that makes it clear about whether the row location heading was for day activities vs over-nighter info. Before that on trips with a lot of set changes between cities I’d get confused about that.
I had TripIt for our Europe trip last spring. It was okay but somehow didn’t get all of my (many) travel reservations. So I didn’t feel like I could rely on it. Others may have set theirs up better, though!
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I had the same experience and didn’t find it useful.
One thing I like to do is print out my reservations and stack them in chronological order and staple. I have a flat pocket at the back of my bag where I keep them. I can pull out and pull off the top one, toss when done.
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I used to travel extensively for work pre-Covid, and I LOVE TripIt! I don’t travel for work as much now, but I always use it for personal trips. I’ll even create a trip for when our daughter (who lives in a different country) comes to visit, and forward her travel plans to it, so I have her flights and other details handy. Dinner reservations, event information, rental cars, etc. are all in one place. I would rank it my #1 travel tip.
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Although I gave up (at least for now) relying on TripIt, I do like the way it detects reservations at the inbox.
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Has anybody signed up for Mobile Passport Control described in link? Like Global Entry, it is only good when returning to US. But it is free, without the 11 month backlog.
The tip about taking landmark photos (to id location of photos once back home) is good. My husband takes a lot of photos of signs at historic sites, national parks etc, partly for that reason.
When we park at the airport, I take a photo of the location sign (level, east/west, area) near our car. When we park at Denver USAirport offsite parking, I take a photo of the location slip given by the shuttle driver - reduces the worry about losing it. (Stashing away the slip is my job. Stashing away the car keys is hubby’s job… and one time I had quite the panic as he rummaged around his backpack - good thing it is a pretty long shuttle ride.)
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We used it a couple of years ago on NYE flying into Dulles from Zurich. The lines were INSANE!! We stood in line for about 30 min and barely moved at all. Younger S noticed a family just breeze by and go through the diplomat line. He went and asked an employee what was up. He noticed him about the app. He downloaded it, took pictures of our passport and we went out of there in 10 min. He saved us many many many many hours that night.
I downloaded it for our trip coming back from Quebec, but the line was empty and we just walked through the regular line.
I’ve got the condition approval for global entry, but I have no idea when we will be able to get an appointment. We live over 2 hours from the nearest airport and we both work Monday - Friday.
That was the line and the picture doesn’t do it justice. The line kept going past where you can see!!!
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Yes, coming home from Mexico - a friend told me about it - I was skeptical about putting my passport in a free app, but it disappears after a pretty short period. It really was amazing.
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So this is something you do somewhat real time (not way ahead of time with no international trips on the horizon)?
I downloaded it on the plane as we were landing (so I had cell reception). Not something to load up well in advance.
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All my charging cables are hot pink, never left one behind because of that.
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Yes - We successfully used MPC to breeze thru Atlanta - our US entry airport from a Europe trip in 2023.
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I just saw that Mobile Passport webpage - suggested it to fam and they nixed it. Based on productive reviews here may revisit!
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If I am interpreting the comment correctly, you could download the app last-minute in case line is long. There was something about family on one entry, but that might be only with young kids(?). Suspect hubby and I might try to do our together.
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My husband and I used MPC arriving into Dulles a couple days after Christmas and saved us a huge amount of time. We did still have about 50 people in the MPC line but that was much better than the massive line for regular passport control. If you are traveling together, you only need one MPC account.
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I was going to say that’s how I thought it worked. We had younger S who was 21 with us, but also his GF. I thought we went through as one group.
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