In my filing cabinet at home I have folders marked with different tabs. The Travel one is stuffed with handwritten notes and pages torn out of magazines/newspaper articles. This could be anything of interest in a place I think I might go. For example, when I went to Bangkok a few years ago, I had in that folder the best places to get a $5. Thai massage (as opposed to the same one for $60. at our hotel). Then there are separate folders for places I return to like, Paris or Australia and I put the same types of handwritten notes and clippings in these files. I have one for Las Vegas where I keep those loyalty cards that are used in slot machines. This keeps us on the promo mailing lists and I keep those offers in that folder too. I also have separate folders for our mileage programs and refer to them from time to time when I might be flying to see if any deals for extra miles might be available.

I try to go through these files once a year and throw out expired ones.

I also have online filing folders marked again with destinations I think I'll go to. When planning a trip, I create a folder and throw all correspondence relating to that trip in that folder. I'm leaving for Australia tomorrow and all my hotel confirmations, airline etickets, restaurant resy's, phone numbers of friends and gen'l tourist info were printed up last night from the file. I don't delete it until I've returned from my trip. In the event my papers get lost, I can get to a cyber cafe and retreive the info. BTW, I also email my itinerary to myself for that purpose too.

Also, when on a trip I keep all receipts, museum tickets, names of guides, business cards, etc. I always tell myself that they will go into an album, but they never seem to. However, once home, I do keep all this stuff together in an envelope and mark it with the name and date of the trip. So, for example, should anyone ask about a private guide/driver for Portugal, I can get that folder from my Spain/Portugal trip this past summer and look up our guide's name and phone number. Need a recommendation of a hotel or restaurant in Iceland? I can just go to my Iceland envelope and pull the receipts out and I'll have the names, addresses and prices we paid.

Lastly, of course, there are the bits of papers stuck to the fridge w/ magnets, reminding me to use a certain credit cards for a period of time to get extra miles on purchases, etc.

Candice NYC and leaving for sunny Sydney tomorrow!