Sticking close to the planning basics

Are you so intertwined with your computer, BlackBerry and iCal that you don’t use Post-it notes anymore? Do you miss them? Duffelup.com brings back the simplicity of travel planning with virtual stickies.

What’s hot: Creating a travel itinerary with a corkboard and virtual Post-it notes puts the fun back in online travel planning. (But FYI, create-your-own travel itineraries are not new. NileGuides, TripWolf, TravelMuse and many other websites offer similar features.) On this one, you drag and drop your stickies into the different days of your trip itinerary. You can clip ideas from anywhere on the Web with the “bookmarklet” tool so you don’t you have to retype the info. I particularly liked the map view. It has numbered pins with the locations of all the planned stops on your trip. And in the left navigation bar, you’ll find extra details such as dates, addresses, Web links and more. If you’re just starting, don’t skip the helpful demo video.

What’s not: You can browse other travelers’ itineraries for popular cities in “Duffel Central,” but they’re categorized only by how recent they are. This would be more helpful if Duffel spotlighted a few common trips by length of stay. Why not, for instance, “a weekend in Vegas,” “a week in London” or even “the best of Australia in two weeks”?

-- Jen Leo