I am starting to put together a vacation trip. It will be part business and part pleasure; we won't always be going to the same places or doing the same things. I'm more than a little scatterbrained and I am worried that I'm going to miss things.

Is there good software or a service for travel planning.

I have used TripIt Pro, TripCase, and Worldmate. (I have an alias that forwards into all three, but I find TripIt is almost always best at figuring things out. (I haven't tried Kayak yet.)) All the details so far are in all three services.

I'm looking for something that will, at least, let me see gantt charts of where we will be and what we will each be doing. It needs to show local times as well as the elapsed times. Using straight calendar appointments I find myself getting confused by time zones.

Ideally I would love to have some intelligence that would say "I notice you don't have a hotel for Lake Como."

I also want to minimize data entry, especially around changes.

I use Google apps and Office 2013. I'm reasonably technical.

Does such a thing exist? I would think it would be a necessity for people who are planning complex trips for teams. Just getting my girlfriend and I around southern Europe is taxing my ability to keep details straight.

TIA,

Dan

The only thing I can recommend, if you think you'll have to spend any real time working is this: A four way, surge protected power brick, with a length of cord of at least five meters, plus at least two USB charge plugs and plenty of adapters from your home supply to the local power supply.

You have no idea how many hotels I've stayed at where the nearest power outlet in the room is nowhere near the desk (or whatever counts as work space). Not software I know, but then again I don't rely on specific software for the actual travel - just a solid to-do list beforehand and a hawk like attitude during the actual travel (really, I keep a mental check-list of what I'm carrying and go through it each time I move).

Yes, they are known as travel agents.

Not travel specific, but I think you would probably get the most out of some type of project planning software, though it won't tell you that you are missing a hotel in one location.

Though I can't possibly picture a trip so complex I need gantt charts for.

Wow. Not to hijack my own thread, but you travel a lot heavier than I do.

I carry:

Android phone (International)LaptopAll the cables are white so I won't trip over them. I have the cheapest (lightest) extension cord I could find. Flat ethernet packs better.When I'm overseas the ground adapter is replaced by a universal converter. I hate carrying something that big, but I know me well enough to know I would bring the wrong individual adapter. Trying to find a converter in a tiny village in the Himalayas is not something I want to repeat.

I charge my phone, gf's camera, and the gf's iStuff through the laptop. The extension cord has the multiple outlets and the power brick is the surge suppressor.

I also have a spare USB power plug and USB cable, but those get left behind if I feel like I'm taking too much crap.

You are obviously smarter than I am. I have to plot everything out or I make temporal errors. So far I can only do time zones in my head for a handful of cities.

And I *like* gantt charts