Printed Documents Verses Electronic

[PrincessShmoo]

If just having an official looking piece of paper could get you into a hotel room, on a bus, or on an airplane wouldn't people just generate fake confirmation papers?

I suppose, as long as they'd done their homework and make it look like the confirmations that are sent when you make such reservations. Not just a generically typed statement on a blank paper.

I can only report, it helped when we had a problem.

 

[Dug720]

If just having an official looking piece of paper could get you into a hotel room, on a bus, or on an airplane wouldn't people just generate fake confirmation papers?

In my experience, most have enough details it would be time consuming to get all of them on there. Graphics. Specific wording and arrangements. Terms and conditions. Etc. I doubt the vast majority of people are going to go to that kind of trouble.

Of course I am also stupid enough to think that people are not going to pay DCL prices just to go on board and put nefarious stuff in the toiletry bottles, so...

 

[Marc D]

We do much the same. TripIt is great. In addition to the app itself, I use it to create a PDF of the itinerary and download it to my iPad and iPhone. That way, I can access the information even if I cannot get a decent connection.

The beauty of TripIt is that, as long as you saw the information in the app before, it is cached, so you do not need a working connection to access anything. The last thing I do before leaving home is to refresh it and I’m up to date from that moment.

 

[kiford]

I might have one or two items in hardcopy if that's how they were provided to me (e.g., travel insurance booklet and invoice because that's what my TA gives me), but I will normally have everything electronically: e-mail, Apple Wallet, PDF copy on phone/tablet, app, or information with confirmation number in Tripit. If you have the confirmation number or a barcode/QR code, you rarely need anything else as the number can be looked up or code scanned. I will sometimes have the same item in multiple electronic means (e.g., e-mail and Apple Wallet; e-mail and app; e-mail and Tripit and PDF) just in case I don't have access to wifi and that's required to access it.

The last time I carried stuff in hardcopy was in Italy as I wasn't sure what their procedures were and I had to have multiple copies of our passports to provide to the Airbnb hosts. Turns out I could have taken about 10% of what I had brought with me so next time I will take much less. Likely just hotel/Airbnb addresses, embassy addresses, and passport copies. I had purchased train tickets for all four of us and printed out copies for each of us and it turns out that they only needed to scan one of the tickets since they were all linked together. So even if I did print out hardcopy, I'd only bring one in future. And they could have scanned it off my phone either from the e-mail or the train app.

I haven't printed out an airport or train boarding pass (other than Italy) in a few years. I just use my phone or tablet.

 

[Starwind]

I print a paper copy [double-sided] of key reservations and trip documents.

I make a PDF of the same documents and keep a copy in Evernote, which on my phone, tablet and laptop. The phone and tablet come on the trip.

SW

 

[doublesided]

We don't print unless its something that says you have to print it unless we are going out of the country when I'm unsure about cell service.

 

[JaimeInParker]

So I know we live in an electronic age, but I was curious - Do you handle all your reservations, airlines, etc with your phone, or do you print them all and take hard copies as well? I was about to try to sit down and print everything... from trip insurance, cruise documents, park documents, hotel reservations, park tickets, airline documents... but in all honestly it's a bit overwhelming and I don't know the last time I referenced a hard copy of anything on a vacation.

I tend to like a hard copy but is it really necessary?

I keep a hard copy of everything that relates to my trip - you never know when you will have to show someone something or have to look it up AND then you have no cell service or poor service --- this is an easy way to alleviate a potential headache plus it doesn't take that long nor weight that much