Travel with Office 365 Home Premium & One Note - Review

When I go on vacation, I don't want to worry about anything which is why I get a little obsessive about planning my vacation. Seriously, I  make reservations for excursions and have everything taken care of ahead of time so there is no wasted time when we are out of town. The planning, however, can be a bit stressful and overwhelming and I had not figured out the perfect organization system when I was contacted to try out OneNote 2013.

Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium is a new subscription service that delivers the latest and greatest Office applications and features to include a travel planning program within OneNote. OneNote is a digital note-taking tool that helps you store and organize all your ideas, from written and audio notes to photos and screen captures from the web. Plus, One Note Mobile given you instant access on SkyDrive.

Five ways OneNote can help you with your travel plans:

1. Reference your notes: Once all your research and planning details are in OneNote, it is easy to recall a particular detail at any given moment. You can use the instant search application to recall anything you have ever put in OneNote.
2. Turn online research into plans: Clip and save information with the "Send to OneNote" tool. As you make reservations, clip screensots and send web pages or entire documents directly to sections of your notebook, no printer needed! You can also scan into OneNote critical information you may need for your trip, such as passports, medication labels or immunazation records.
3. Move with your notes on-the-go: Save your notebook to SkyDrive and access it on your mobile phone of in the browser with the OneNote Web App. Once in the cloud, you'll be able to access your information across your favorite devices.
4. Let Excel & OneNote work together for you: With OneNote 2013, you can create and imporrt Excell budget spreadsheets right into your notebook. What's better is that when you edit that spreadhseet in OneNote, it will update the original Excell spreadsheet at the same time.
5. Collaborate with family and friends via SkyDrive: Give your friends and family access to your travel notebook on SkyDrive so they can add their own travel tips and advice and keep track of your itinerary.

OneNote Review:We are going to Boston this year and I have been feeling a little more overwhelmed with planning because we won't have a car and will be reliant on their public transportation system. This requires a lot more planning that I am used to and I have started a large paper notebook full of reservation information, travel plans, and more. However, I did not want to tote around this large notebook so the thought of having all the information on a mobile device was very intriguing.

The program is fairly easy to use, though I have had to play around with it quite a bit and am sure there are many more features that I have yet to discover. It is a wonderful way to save all the information in one area. With just a couple clicks, I was able to import my reservation information right into the program. I can set an agenda for each day, save screen shots of public transportation schedules, and information about all the landmarks we plan on visiting. The program screens are very attractive as well. You can use the templates that are already designed but there is also a lot of freedom to add, delete, or customize features within the program. It has everything I would have in a paper itinerary, but in a more functional format.

My only concern is the Microsoft account in general. The program would really be priceless if I could use it on my iPad; however, when I try to sign in to Microsoft so I can set it up I get a message that my email does not exist in their system and when I try to set up a new account, it says my email is already in use...very frustrating!! I have very little patience for things like this and don't know if I will get that sorted out before just giving up.  If I can't get this straightened out, I am not sure how much I will use this particular program because it won't do me much good if I can't access it while in Boston.  If I can get it sorted out, this program may just be my new best friend.

Buy it here: OneNote 2013 is available for free with a Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium subscription. The subscription is available for $99.99 per year. A free 30-day trial is available online at Office.com.  

I was provided with the above mentioned service for the purpose of facilitating this review. All opinions expressed are my own.