Staying organized as a traveling group, 2024 edition

March 16, 2024 3:35 PM

Five whole years ago I asked this question, and there wasn't a good answer. Is there one now? I'll shortly be traveling, and I'd love an app or system to help me keep track of all the details + inform others in the group of what we're doing each day.

So yes I want to put my airline details in there, but I also want to add where we'll be dining and what events we have tickets for and what time we'll be leaving for the theater and where the closest metro stop is to that museum, etc. Basically, a full itinerary that I can have in one place, that I can also easily share with others.

I know I can put this in Google Docs and have everyone look at it -- which was my solution five years ago -- but is there a better solution? Is there an easy solution? An app? I don't mind paying for it!

(Everybody in this group has an iPhone; some folks are better at tech than others.)

posted by BlahLaLa to Travel & Transportation (10 answers total)

Best answer: I used TripIt to organize my trip last year with several stops in the itinerary. It was fine. You can forward confirmation emails to TripIt and it aggregates them into a single itinerary. TripIt is better at some types of email than others.

A Google doc is still perfectly fine. Your group will probably use something like WhatsApp to stay in touch during the trip. You just need a single source of truth for the itinerary that you can easily update from your mobile phone. Google docs fits the bill.
posted by shock muppet at 4:18 PM on March 16 [6 favorites]

In your shoes, I’d write a blog post for each day of the trip and then each morning send a link to that day’s post to the group chat.

Accessing a non-editable document through a web browser makes a more seamless experience when clicking on included links (museum website or restaurant menu, for example)

I’d much rather be loading a static web page with external links than a Google doc. A blog would let things be tagged with cities/categories and browsed that way, plus simple for people to browse ahead.
posted by itesser at 4:29 PM on March 16 [2 favorites]

Have you looked at Wanderlog at all? It has nice functionality for adding destinations to your map, and then you can create sections based on type of attraction and/or date, so you could make a section for March 17th that says "11:00 Louvre, 1:00 Eiffel Tower, 3:00 Arc de Triomphe" with each one linked to its location on the map. You can share itineraries and put whatever you want in the notes.
posted by Jeanne at 4:57 PM on March 16 [1 favorite]

Google Calendar would work for this, as would Google Keep. If everyone has iPhones, Apple's calendar might also work if you can share it.
posted by soelo at 5:21 PM on March 16

I also use Tripit for this - it's been helpful.
posted by leslies at 5:23 PM on March 16

You want Tripsy. It has all the features described in your previous post, including sharing a read only view of the trip itinerary. It’s so easy to add things to an itinerary, as the app shows up in the iOS share sheet (meaning you can share links, maps locations, documents, etc directly to Tripsy from another app).
posted by bluloo at 6:12 PM on March 16 [2 favorites]

2nding Wanderlog. It's also really good for helping to plan your days/routes, too. It can be as collaborative as you want it to be (you can share editing rights or view only) if you want people to add their own stops to the itinerary.
posted by acidic at 9:43 PM on March 16

1. If folks all use iCloud, the sharing features of apple's built-in app, Notes, might be helpful as an alternate to google docs, with advantageous iOS integration. This blog, first hit on this google search, talks about their system. Notes has a lot of unexpected, hidden features.

2. I'd consider doing meeting invites for time sensitive, fixed events, with relevant metro/ticket/flight/address information within the invite. Push notifications are incredibly nice for getting bodies to different places on time, and consistently display well on smart watches if available.

3. I'd strongly consider the least common denominator, and probably do a google doc, especially if that worked for folks in the past. Track changes within google docs, suggest people add comments inline and do a group text for urgent matters. Peoples phones fail unexpectedly on trips, by battery, theft, damage, or poor signal - so its real nice to fail to a physical printout itinerary from the business center in your hotel, e.g., that one can annotate with a trusty pen as needed. Can't beat a document editor/printout for that flexibility.
posted by enfa at 8:09 AM on March 17

Seconding Wanderlog. Once it sent us a notification that the hotel stay we'd booked was now £70 cheaper and we cancelled and rebooked.
posted by alby at 11:40 PM on March 17

Response by poster: I didn't have the personal capacity to check out these new sources after all, so I stuck with a google doc + a printed-out hard copy and that was fine. Not great, but fine, and it worked.
posted by BlahLaLa at 9:39 AM on May 8 [1 favorite]