Pocket Travel

During my travels, I used to keep all my schedules, hotel reservations, meetings, and other such details in Pocket Word. I'd make up a nice little Pocket Word document to refer to and adjust it if needed. That was before I discovered Pocket Travel.

Pocket Travel (www.synctel.com) is a travel organizer application that understands the need for having lots of information presented in a quick and easy way. I have fiddled around with a number of different travel organizer applications on a number of different PDAs, but none are as easy to use as Pocket Travel. When I am pressed for time or carrying around tons of luggage, I want to be able to access my travel information quickly. I do not want to wade through zillions of menu screens or have to tap my Pocket PC to death to get at the information. There are some extra features I would like to see, but Pocket Travel is already a must-have application for me.

Itinerary management

Pocket Travel groups everything about a particular trip into one itinerary. Once your data has been entered into this itinerary, everything you need is one click away. For multiple trips, the itinerary concept makes it easy to jump from trip to trip without mixing up trip details.

Once you have added an itinerary—say, a trip to Los Angeles—you then enter your flight, hotel, and car reservations. Once the details are set, these appear as visually appealing icons: a little plane, a hotel building, or a car (see Screen 1). Tap on an icon and the related information pops up. Many other travel applications present information as a plethora of text. Pocket Travel's use of itineraries combined with the informational icons makes it a definite winner.

Data-entry: easy and customizable

It takes just minutes to enter all your trip details into Pocket Travel. This is another thing that I found lacking in other such programs. As a frequent traveler I don't have time to deal with complicated data entry methods. I want it all there and I want it there now.

You begin by opening Pocket Travel and tapping on the "New" menu. A dialog box pops up, prompting you to give the new itinerary a name. Do so, tap OK and it will appear in Pocket Travel's itinerary list. Tap on the new itinerary in the list and a blank page opens up. Tap on the "New" menu again and you are allowed to specify a flight, hotel, or car reservation (see Screen 1).

Screen 1: Within a Pocket Travel itinerary, you can add flight, hotel, or car reservation information.

To add information about air travel, tap on "Flight Reservation." You are presented with a dialog box with four tabs, labeled "Depart," "Arrive," "General," and "Notes" (see Screen 2). These tabs let you enter all the trip details at once, including the city name, date, departure and arrival times, flight numbers, gates, and miscellaneous notes. Other travel organizer programs had me duplicate the information, changing only the departure and arrival times. Pocket Travel lets you do everything at once. You add hotel and car reservation information in a similar fashion. In no time everything is in Pocket Travel and all under one itinerary.

Screen 2: In Pocket Travel, tap on "Flight Reservation." You are presented with a dialog box with four tabs, labeled "Depart," "Arrive," "General," and "Notes."