Do you remember the last trip that you took? In this season, chances are that it was only last week or last month. As much as we love to travel, ideally for leisure, we are often overwhelmed by all the planning and coordination that are involved in the process — flights, car rentals, lodging, just to begin with. And if you are truly a planner, you want to add the places to dine, events to attend, and attractions to stop by to the itinerary.

Luckily, we are in the technology-centric era. We have websites, software, and devices that help us make life easier. Two companies that I recently came across, TripIt and Traxo, are designed to take care of travelers’ concerns. Much like TripIt, Traxo aims to simplifying travelers' lives by aggregating all of their travel information in one place, but it does so in a more elegant auto-pull manner versus an email push one. Traxo users just need to link their travel accounts to Traxo via a one-time, upfront process, and then Traxo automatically detects all of their trips, miles, and points and intelligently combines them into a single travel dashboard. It also allows members to share experiences with friends and possibly discover where they might have an overlapping trip with another.

But what makes this really interesting is that these services are available for smartphones. In his recent Forrester report “Why Smartphones Will Become One Of Travel’s Two Most Important Touchpoints”, my colleague Henry Harteveldt points out that “travelers are up to three times more likely than all US adults to have a smartphone.” 

And while most travel providers offer travelers mobile apps for some parts of their travels, TripIt and Traxo are taking this convenience one step further, allowing travelers to manage their travels in smarter ways as smartphones become the hub of the travel information.

Now, travelers have another reason to own a smartphone — or maybe smartphone owners have another reason to show off.