Tracking daily details while on the road?

For the last few trips I have started off with a email folder
then made a spreadsheet for an itinerary as we form it
print out all of my itinerary and confirmations
put the itinerary in the 3 prong folder and the confirmations behind them
slip it in the back of my messenger back carry on

Having the spreadsheet in my face is way easier than navigating to all different places on my phone if I want to really get the big picture.

I'm using the app Wanderlog, which keeps all that data (arrival and departure info, train tickets, hotels, rental car info and daily itineraries) into a single trip that I can access online or on the phone app. I just pull it up, look for the relevant info and take it from there. I really love it and think it's a great application. I have the paid version, but you can do a lot with the free version.

Like many here I use the TripIt app. It’s free and usable offline. Also, you can send your itinerary to anyone you need to. You can input all your activities, restaurants, flights, hotels, etc.

I do sometimes use Visitacity.com for planning purposes. recently they have too many adds, pop-ups, and third party sellers now. Still, I like it because it has a map and marks all your sights for the day, giving you walking times and distance. It also has an option with public transport or cab. It’s helpful to organize your sightseeing efficiently.
It’s easy to move sights from one day to the next. It also tells you if a place is closed for the day or what time they close.

I also use trip it. I find it works great for me.

I am very pen and paper. On every big trip (that involves a plane), I take a folder with all our printed out reservations, plane itineraries, list of ideas for what we want to see, recommendations for restaurants, etc. I usually have some sheets of blank paper or a small journal to jot down what we do each day, and where we eat. I make a copy of the calendar month we are in so I can see the days visually laid out and what we have planned. So no, not very much tech at all--besides the bar codes for the plane flights on our phones. I barely use my phone except for googling something or a quick map check. I also bring a guide book (yes, I still do that), but I usually don't write in it. (I have yet to actually use a phone in Europe--the last time we were there was 2016. The whole SIM thing confuses me, and I never carry around I-pads--only use them at home).

We had this longer thread recently on how to organize your Trip Research. You can see there are wide variations from basic old school to power point level.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/general-europe/how-do-you-organize-your-trip-research

I'm looking at Wanderlog but right now have all my itineraries for 2024 and 2025!!! started in Googledocs pages which are accessible on my home laptop, my iPad Mini and my iPhone. I insert a table of 4 columns across for Date, Activity, Transport and Lodging and keep my pertinent details there. As I book hotels the confirmation number goes into the Lodging column. Air travel dates, flights and times goes into the TRansport column as do rail tickets. When I am working at home I usually use the laptop but on a trip I depend on my phone and iPad Mini and try to do everything electronically.

I have used TripIt successfully for many years.

Mardee has been kind enough to offer to share her use of Wanderlog with us on an upcoming online meeting of the San Francisco East Bay Travel Group, where everyone is welcome.

If you'd like to join our first Tech for Travel session to see how Mardee puts Wanderlog to good use, please RSVP on the meeting thread and mark your calendars:

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/travel-meetings/san-francisco-east-bay-travel-group-mar-9-2024-online-everyone-welcome

Wow everyone many thanks for your tips
… I’ve already downloaded the apps suggested
And will be test driving them
To see what fits my style of doing things
Again …Mille merci

I do a variety of things:
In preparation before I go I buy a very small notebook and have all of my details in there silly things including how to dial back to the United States my address here my address there my flight information and a schedule that little book also includes my packing list the things that I want to purchase and a way to track how I spend my money. There is also a section on the things that I want to visit for. i.e. the Eiffel Tower. What are the opening times, what days they’re closed and the cost so that I can kind of have that planned out as well.
Then I save links on my desktop of places that I want to go specifically restaurants but sometimes other things as well. That makes it easier to find when I want to make a reservation or decide on a restaurant if I have not already pre-booked.
Lastly I blog and that gives me memories as well as pictures for future reference. Sometimes as a blog I also put links in because of all the bloggers for me and my family, other people could find it useful.
For me, the planning as part of the adventure of the trip.

Am I the only person who pins everything to a Google map and notes specific details in the "notes" entry for the specific location? Or uses tne Notes app on iphone for specifc things? I'm not loading stuff into a spreadsheet bc I'm not schlepping a laptop around on vacation.

Nikki, I have used google maps for a LONG time making "my maps", but it is not very user friendly and handy on a phone when I am on the go. My friend showed me apple maps guides and its SO MUCH EASIER to add/edit on my phone. You can't add notes (but was I going to be searching ALL the notes in all 200 places on my map for one particular thing?) but I actually made a spreadsheet in Numbers with my top options for whichever treat/snack/meal/etc in the whole city.

Also, no need to schlep a laptop, all of my spreadsheets are in Numbers (or google sheets) so that we can update and access from anywhere (with cell service, yet I bet if its already on my phone I could possibly pull it up without) and then I also the spreadsheet printed out in my folder....

I have an email that is just for travel and all my tickets and such are forwarded to that as well as photo copies of key documents. I used to keep a folder of hard document copies but don't do that anymore since each of us has a phone and I can pull them up on his if mine fails. (which is did a year ago -- brand new Iphone 14 ceased functioning a month after purchase in the middle of a 6 week trip)

I also make blank calendar pages and keep a paper calendar especially for things we plan while in a place, like dinners with friends, concerts, museum tickets etc so day to day planning is easy.

WOW Janettravels, that is a pretty great idea! And I definitely wouldn't have thought of it! I get so many travel emails that I have to move to their respective folders in my normal one that might come in handy! haha

For arrival & departure info, I use the airlines app.

I use Notes in my phone and create a note for each destination. I’ll add things I’m likely to forget in my jet-lagged state of mind: get cash at the airport, buy the museum pass at the Info desk, etc.

I’ll also jot down a few restaurants and sites we want to see. I save a lot of these in TripAdvisor, and add comments like “oldest patisserie in Paris”, etc.

I create a basic itinerary of what we’ll see each day at that location.

I also use this page to make notes of what I wore, tidbits about transportation that I think might be helpful in trip reports, notes about meals, etc.

For each hotel, I make a separate Note with the hotel name and address in the local language. I can just show that to the taxi driver.

Except for using e-mail and the internet, I am totally old school...just pen and paper , mainly 3x5 notecards, the daily planner, etc.

I'm more paper-based than most but not exclusively so. I travel mostly solo, my trips are very long, and I usually have only a few hotels and one or two transatlantic flights pinned down when I leave home. Everything else gets worked out on the road.

What I take in paper form:

• Extremely detailed sightseeing notes for any city I might possibly visit; these come from reading multiple guidebooks and virtually every pertinent post on this forum. They represent the universe of possibilities, not firm plans. I also list restaurants for which I've seen recommendations, tips on using local transportation, etc.
• A chart for each major city, showing sights' operating hours for each day of the week (7 columns across), so I can see my options at a glance every morning and easily spot things about to close for several days, open late that night, etc. I don't establish detailed plans in advance unless I absolutely must. On tricky days I may mark up the chart to document my plan.
• Segments of guidebooks I haven't managed to incorporate into my sightseeing notes, a task never finished before leaving home. I always carry with me things like Rick's walking tours that are impractical to condense.
• Any useful city maps I happen to have for the areas I'll be visiting. I like having a paper map.
• Copies of flight and hotel confirmations set up before I leave home (not that many, usually).
• A spreadsheet showing where I'll be each day and inter-city transportation if I have much set up before leaving home. I don't update it on the road.
• 4" x 6" spiral notebook in which I record new confirmation numbers for hotels and sights, train and flight times, etc., as the trip goes on--protection against problems with my smartphone, a critical app, or cellular data at an inopportune time.
• 3" x 5" spiral notebook for recording daily expenses--mainly just for myself, but it's also my reminder of where I ate if I want to provide a restaurant recommendation. But I get really lazy about making those notes early on and end up mostly just carrying receipts around with me until I get home.

What I take in electronic form are:

• A Google MyMap for each not-tiny city I might visit, with sights and restaurants of interest flagged. Time permitting, I add hours of operation for sights. I add my hotel when that reservation is made. In very large cities with many dozens of sights flagged, I sometimes change the color of the day's targets to make those places easier to identify. I change the color of a sight's icon after I've visited it so it's easy to see what remains to be done. I drop gray icons along streets I've explored during my ramblings, to avoid repeated visits to the same ones.
• Tickets and confirmations for things arranged after I left home.
• Sightseeing brochures and maps found on tourist-information websites pre-trip. (I seem not to look at those often.)
• My sightseeing notes and daily-operating-hours charts, as described in the "on paper" section above.