1. TripAdvisor
I love this site. It's so easy to search for everything you could want in a city: accommodations, great restaurants, the best sites to see and the little known sites that you won't want miss. We used TripAdvisor to find great hotels that fit our party of six, by easily scrolling through the top-rated hotels for each city until we found some that met our needs and were a great deal. I also searched sites for each city, saving them in a collection to review later as we tried to narrow down our plans. The reviews are were very helpful too.
2. Pinterest
This trip was different than others we've done with the kids in that in combined both an airline trip (keeping kids busy on a plane) with a road trip (keeping kids busy in a car.) If I didn't plan carefully, I knew we'd run out of interesting material or haul way more than we had room for. (We packed for the four of us in one checked bag and one carry-on. Everything had to fit in the back of the minivan for the week.)
Pinterest to the rescue. Searching for kids and road trips, I found many helpful ideas. Here's how we packed:
Airplane entertainment bag:
- iPad (only used on the last leg home)
- Homework
- Books
- Coloring books and crayons
- Snacks
- Magazines
Van entertainment bag:
- iPad (hooked up front with adapters to play music and audio books)
- Car bingo
- Roadside scavenger hunt
- Notebooks and pens
- Books
- Four wrapped dollar store presents for each kid
- Usborne Books "100 Things for Little Children to Do on a Journey" with white board markers
- Road Trip Clips to encourage good behavior
- A Traveling Car to track our progress
- Snacks
- Maps of California to trace our route (didn't even get to those)
I first used Evernote back in 2009 at a Web writing conference, but hadn't really found much purpose for it since then. The organizational tool allows you to keep all sorts of information in one spot: written copy, emails, Web sites, photos, audio clips, Web links, etc. Evernote syncs automatically to all of your platforms: Web, desktop, iPad, phone, etc. It makes it terribly convenient to save something important no matter where you are at and know exactly where to find it later.
I started using it this fall for homeschooling as an experiment and love it. I figured I might as well try it out on a trip. I'm so glad we did too. Before leaving, I saved all of our important travel information in a small collection of Evernote folders online: airline ticket and hotel info, rental car details and our packing list (complete with check-boxes to use as we packed). I created a "note" for each site we planned to visit, pasting in hours, directions, must-sees, parking, food, links to related sites and more. I also created notes for our van travel days, with suggested routes, places to stop, even directions to view the Hollywood sign, along with some information about the sign itself.
It all sounds terribly complicated and it would be - without Evernote. Thanks to the Web clipper, an extension you can add to your Web browser, much of this can be done with a click and a couple key strokes. Rather than digging through my phone for emails, Web sites, maps and other locations, it was very easy for Jason or me to open Evernote and find everything we needed.
What do you use to help with trip planning?
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