Microsoft Outlook: Traveller’s Secret Advantage

If you want to become a better traveller, you can skip some of those how-to books penned by armchair road warriors.

Instead, fire up your laptop computer and open Microsoft Outlook. Yes, I’m talking about that ever-present application that handles e-mail, scheduling and some word processing tasks.

Make the Most of Your Laptop
Odds are pretty good that you’ve got a copy of it installed on your laptop, and that you take your portable with you when you travel. (Regarding the latter point, a recent survey by Harris Interactive found that more than one in four laptop PC owners say their machine is one of their “most prized possessions,” and nearly a third said they’ve regretted leaving it at home on trips and have turned around to retrieve it on at least one occasion.)

Outlook is to travellers what a paper clip is to MacGyver. It does a lot more than you think. (My apologies to those who aren’t familiar with television show which had its heyday in the 1980s and ’90s.)

Using Scheduling Features for a Trip
Marielle Barnes, a consultant in Bangalore, India, counts on Outlook’s scheduling...