Bring OneNote on your next trip (relax, it doesn't snore!)

One of the most thrilling parts of travel is the planning process. Even if you're not terribly organized, daydreaming about far-away places and weighing your options between all of those cool places you've ever wanted to visit can be a lot of fun. Ready to dive into those bulky travel books and endless websites to research your choices for your next vacation? First, consider how and where you're going to collect and use all of that information.

Travel planning is time-consuming enough without going back to the same websites over and over again. With a reported 93 million U.S. adults using the Internet for travel-related research and planning in 2010, the choices and details involving a family vacation can be overwhelming. It's only a matter of time before important websites are forgotten and vital travel information and emails are misplaced.

Remember how much time you wasted on your last trip, shuffling through all of the printouts and note scribbles to find your sightseeing tips from friends and coworkers, or any of your flight, hotel, and tour confirmations? Didn't you wish there was a better way to keep everything in one place?

On your next getaway, consider inviting an additional guest: Microsoft OneNote!

Don't worry—OneNote pays its own way, won't take up the whole bed, and doesn't snore. It's the quintessential "catch-all" for capturing, organizing, and remembering all of your notes, ideas, and information about your trip.
 

Our free Thailand-themed travel notebook shows you what's possible with Microsoft OneNote 2010.
Not going to Thailand? No problem! Customize this notebook to match your own destination and plans!
 

OneNote isn't just good for all of the research and planning that happens before a trip. It's absolutely invaluable once you've left home and you need to recall any particular detail at any given moment.

Here are just some of the ways in which OneNote can be a lifesaver when you’re on the road:

• Lost your passport? Have a medical emergency? If you scanned copies of your passport, medication labels, or immunization records into OneNote, they're available to you even if the originals are lost or stolen.
   
• Hotel mix-up when you arrive? No more vacancy when you decide to stay another day? Book a new deal by using your screen clippings from websites of all of your preferred hotels and restaurants that you previously researched.
   
• Don't want to pack your laptop? Save your notebooks to the cloud with a free Windows Live SkyDrive account, and access your notebooks with either the OneNote Mobile apps on Windows Phone 7 and iPhone, or with the free OneNote Web App for browsers on other devices or on computers in Internet cafés.
   
• Traveling with a group? Give your friends and family members access to your travel notebook on SkyDrive so they can look up and even add their own information whenever they want or need to.
   
• Go paperless! Why drag out pieces of paper from your stash of printouts and risk losing them to a spilled cup of coffee when you can do an instant search in your digital OneNote notebook? Travel light with OneNote and leave the paper chase at home.
   

To show you exactly how OneNote can help you before, during, and after your trip, we’ve built a Thailand-themed trip notebook for you, which you can download for free and play with. Even if you’re not going to Thailand, you’ll quickly see how easy it is to tailor this notebook for your next destination. You can customize this notebook by adding your own information, deleting what you don't care about, and moving the pages and sections around just the way you want them.

Not sure how to customize a downloaded notebook? Office Casual expert Doug Thomas has put together a quick video:
 

 
If you don't yet have OneNote 2010 on your computer, download a free, fully functional 60-day trial version. Once OneNote is installed, download our free Thailand travel notebook and then start customizing it the way you want.

Prefer another destination? Visit www.onenotetravel.com to grab any of the 40 other free travel notebooks that we've created for you.

Summer is almost here. Take OneNote and our travel notebooks for a spin and let us know how you like them. Leave a comment below to tell us about your best planning tips with OneNote. We'd love to hear your ideas!

-- Jevon Fark