Dopplr keeps trying to send me to Canada
As a frequent traveler, I’m always on the lookout for ways to make travel easier. There are several websites out there that claim to do just that, but my patience for trying out every new thing to hit the interwebs is low. But this year I’ve been trying out two sites which claim to help out with travel planning and organization, and there’s a clear winner between the two.
On the surface Dopplr and Tripit are similar – basically you tell the site about your upcoming travels and it will tell you when any of your friends will be in the same place as you are at the same time. It also organizes your travel info into an itinerary which it supplements with other info such as maps, weather, and things to do. You can decide who has access to your trip information and add other users as friends.
Both sites allow you to enter trip information manually, or you can forward your confirmation emails for flights, hotels, etc., and have the site extract the information itself. This feature is key, since I have no desire to perform data entry in order to use a site that is supposed to be making my life easier. TripIt does an infinitely better job with this feature than Dopplr does.
Dopplr seems to be more popular with other bloggers I know, but I’m not sure why. It has done a horrible job of interpreting travel emails. For example, I forwarded it my plane reservation for an upcoming trip to Dublin, and instead Dopplr decided I was going to From, Norway, for almost a year. For another trip Dopplr has me in Night, Canada, one day and Armonai, Lithuania, the next, when in fact I’ll be in Bavaria the whole time. Dopplr also thinks I spent a week in More, England, when in fact I was in Toulouse. Tripit got all those bookings right the first time.
I really like the itinerary presentation on TripIt. It includes vital info about flights and hotels, plus weather and maps for your destination. Flight listings include a handy button which links to the airline’s online check-in. TripIt also has an iPhone app which my husband loves.
Dopplr seems to focus on giving you other information about your destination – restaurant reviews, hotels, sites, etc. – and it encourages you to add your own reviews. Dopplr doesn’t present your itinerary in as useful of a format, but it does keep a copy of confirmation emails handy in case you need to look up information.
The only clear advantage I see to Dopplr is that as of now more people I know use it than use TripIt. This is important for the second big advantage of these sites, i.e. their ability to let me know when friends and I will be in the same place at the same time. A site needs a critical mass of users for this to really work. The easiest way for me to check to see if most of my friends will be in a certain place at the same time as me? Announcing an upcoming trip in my Facebook status.
I’ve been using both sites for about six months now, but I think I’m about to ditch Dopplr for good. Now if only I could get all my friends to sign up for TripIt.
Do you use any travel websites like these? What’s your opinion on them?
