Many times booking a trip is the easy part, it’s so much fun to finally know that your trip is happening and pressing book can be the start of something wonderful to look forward to.  Though after those bookings are made, it can often be a daunting task to make sure you have all your bookings and itinerary items situated and organized.  You might have multiple hotel confirmations, airline reservations, tickets you’ve pre-bought and so much more, so it’s really important before a trip to keep yourself organized.  Here are my tips for organizing all your bookings before a trip so that you can make sure you have everything necessary for your travels!

Create a Mail Folder

Whenever I start seriously looking at any trip, I create a mail folder in my inbox to hold any emails related to that specific trip.  I actually have an overall Travel folder, with sub folders for each upcoming trip.  This helps so that whenever you et an email confirmation for something for the trip, you can just save it in the trip folder and it’s easy to find later.

Create an Itinerary

When I start booking a trip, I also start a Word document with a typed out itinerary, showing which days we’re going to be where, what flight information is necessary per day, where we’re staying on which days and any specific things like pre-purchased tickets for attractions and such for specific days.  I mark anything that isn’t booked yet in red, so I know that I need to go back and book anything that’s left later.

Create a Folder on your Computer

Once you start having hard copies of things like confirmations and itineraries, you’ll need a folder on your computer to keep all that information.  I follow the same theme as the mail folder, and have a Travel folder in my Documents, then sub folders per trip where I keep everything.  I keep flight confirmations, hotel confirmation, other ticket information and any screen shots I’ve saved of places I want to check out in the location in PDF form in this folder.

Print off all your Information a Week Prior to Travel

About a week or so prior to a trip, I’ll go through and print off all the confirmation I’ve saved over the months of planning.  I like having hard copies and electronic copies of all the confirmations, that way if for some reason you can’t access it one way or another, there is a backup.  Most of the time I never end up using the hard copies, but it gives me more peace of mind to have them.

Always Confirm

When I print off all the bookings before a trip, it also gives me the opportunity to go through and confirm everything.  Make sure you have a place to stay for each night, that your transportation from city city while there is booked and as well to confirm things like frequent flier miles are set to your accounts and seat selections.  Sometimes I realize when doing this that something is missing an it’s that last check to make sure you take care of everything before you head off on your adventure!