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Winnipeg, MB Canada: A new fun conversation piece around friends and colleagues is asking what sort of apps they use on their smartphones. Technically, I'm curious so I can review it for my Tour Manager Apps (TMA) series, but secretly I'm looking for someone else to do the work so I don't have to sift through thousands of travel and organizing apps to find the best ones for my mobile lifestyle needs.
Imagine my delight and surprise when I was contacted by Ryan Hartman of Enabled Apps who asked me to "consider his app for a future TMA piece." The fact that he even found and knew about my series / blog made me a little giddy, plus with a free promo code (thanks again, Ryan!), how could I not review it?
Ryan said he created TripList because "I travel extensively each year and wanted an application that I could trust to keep everything organized." A man who is organized and likes lists? I'm already sold.
As a quick overview, you can add trips and organize them with a checklist of things you need to pack. In the free version, you are allowed to test one trip and add up to 25 items. For only $1.99 more, you can add multiple trips and customize the items to fit your needs.
We'll start with my current trip. I set up a new list for the Dauphins Countryfest. You first get to choose categories of what you want to remember to bring: clothing, documents, electronics, etc. But most importantly - you can add the things YOU need.
As a touring gal, I was able to delete the things I would most likely never bring on a trip and replace them with must-haves on the road. By category:
CLOTHING:
never (at least not with this group!): sarong
a definite must: bus clothes
DOCUMENTS:
let's hope not: vaccine book
without a doubt: passport
ELECTRONICS:
who has time to read?: Kindle
to make the fans happy: Meet & Greet camera
MEDICAL:
only on a world tour: malaria prophalatic
OTHER ITEMS:
I'm keeping them all, especially the
Neighbor's Yard Gnome.
(nice touch!)
Once all items are accounted for, they line up in a neat list, where you can check them off as you pack. Or if you're not quite ready to commit to being completely paper-free, you can email the list to yourself and print it out.
There is also a "Tasks" options which can serve as a to-do list, but I'm not quite ready yet to make the transition from a word document I can organize different areas in my life by multi-colored fonts. But this app will definitely cut back on the post-it notes I use to remind me which eyeglasses to bring on any given trip.
