I’ve known about Tripsy for a long time, but I’ve never had the chance to use it. I’ve always been a casual traveler, and I’ve always been a “go anywhere” kind of person, so naturally, I’ve always scoffed at the idea of a travel guide or itinerary tool. However, I recently planned a 4-day-3-night trip to Tokyo, and since I was pressed for time, had a lot of places I wanted to visit, and it was my first time to Tokyo, I had to do a good job of planning my trip, and I also arranged for Tripsy to help me with the itinerary. I’ve tried using apps like Memo, Craft, Samsung Notes, etc. to make my itinerary, but “there are specialties”, and Tripsy has its own unique way of planning trips. Therefore, I would like to take the opportunity of this trip to introduce how Tripsy can help us to have a better travel experience from the two stages of preparation and during the trip.
The first thing to do when you open Tripsy is to create a new itinerary by first clicking on the plus button in the top right corner. On the creation screen, we can fill in the trip name, start and end dates, time zone, and set a background image. In the background image setting option, we can choose from built-in color backgrounds or live images, and we can even use the search function to find an image we like.
Clicking into the created itinerary, we can see four modules: itinerary, documents, map review and new activities. In the pre-preparation stage, let’s first look at the two sections of documents and new activities.
Although it is called “Documents”, it is actually “Attachments”. In this module, we can manually add pictures, documents, notes, links, etc., such as passports, e-visas, ID cards, translations of international driver’s licenses, etc., which can be accessed and used directly through Tripsy when in use, eliminating the need to rummage through the bag frequently. In addition to the documents that you manually add yourself, the attachments that you add to each activity in Tripsy are also displayed in the Documents module.
“New Activity” is the core function of Tripsy, through which we can add all kinds of events and destinations in our itinerary, including flights, lodging, restaurants, excursions, museums, cafes, activities, shopping, trains, buses, etc., which is very rich in forms and basically covers all the needs of customizing the itinerary of a trip. These new event options are divided into three main categories: flights, locations and transportation modes, which also correspond to three different ways to add, such as flights by searching for airports or flight numbers (or by forwarding emails to Tripsy’s dedicated mailbox), locations by searching for maps, and transportation modes by manually inputting the origin and destination, date, seat and other information. Transportation is added manually by entering the origin and destination, date, seat, etc.
However, the ability to search for locations directly in Tripsy is not very useful, especially for overseas destinations, where you may not get the results you’re looking for. In fact, Tripsy recommends another way to add a new event, which is through the iOS “Share Menu” feature. Take adding a location as an example, I first use Google Maps app to find the right destination, then click “Share – Share this location”, find Tripsy in the share menu, choose the right “New Activity”, here I choose a coffee shop, and in the editing interface, I can edit the trip, start/finish time, phone number, notes and so on, and then click save at the end.
After adding a new activity, all the activities will be displayed in a timeline in the “Itinerary” module, which is the function that Tripsy uses most frequently when you are on the go. The activities are automatically sorted by a pre-set start time in days. If you want to change the order of the activities, you can click on any activity to enter the detail page, then change the start time or end time, and then Tripsy will automatically re-sort the activities after the change.
At the bottom of the module “Itinerary”, you can see three buttons, from left to right, they are Map, Filter and New, the new operation is the same as the “New Activity” mentioned above, so I won’t repeat it here, let’s focus on the map and filter function.
Clicking on the Map button, we can see that all activities are displayed on the map, including flights and transportation modes are also displayed in the form of connecting lines. Under the map view, Tripsy offers two filters: activity type and trip time. According to the activity items we have added, Tripsy can filter them individually based on the type of activity. For example, if we click on “Restaurants”, only activities of the type “Restaurants” will be shown on the map. Similarly, when we select a different trip time, Tripsy will only show activities scheduled for that day on the map.
For me, the best thing about the map view is that it allows me to visualize the location of each activity, and then rearrange the appropriate mode of transportation and order of travel based on their location. In addition, Tripsy’s map view has two other features that I use frequently: when I’m on the go and want to add an activity on the fly, I can edit the activity information by clicking on its name on the map and then clicking the Save Location button; and for walking directions, Tripsy’s maps have access to very detailed satellite imagery and Apple Street View, so I can find places with greater precision. The other is the walking navigation feature, which allows me to find places more accurately because Tripsy’s maps have access to very detailed satellite imagery and Apple Street View.
Go back to the main interface of the Scheduler module, click the “All Activities” button at the bottom of the filter, you can see the different types of activities that you have added, click to select and then save, only the selected type of activities will be kept on the timeline. Click on “Clear Filter” at the bottom and all the activities will be shown on the timeline again.
When you switch the timeline to the current day, Tripsy gives you navigation options based on the time of day and the itinerary you’ve scheduled. For example, at 11:30 a.m., I saw a “Navigate” button below the restaurant I’d scheduled for 12:00 p.m. Clicking on it takes you to either Google Maps or Apple Maps to navigate directly.
Lastly, it’s worth mentioning Tripsy’s Share and Collaborate feature, which allows visitors to collaborate and use the Pro feature for free, since planning a trip inevitably involves consulting with fellow travelers. If you simply want to share your trip without collaborating, you can do so via active links.
Tripsy is a full-featured, aesthetically pleasing, and flexible itinerary planning tool that made my trip to Japan a lot less stressful, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to do serious travel planning, as I had both destination information and route planning at my fingertips.