Ask HN: Freelancers, how do you book and manage travel?

I recently had to plan and book several days of travel. While I'm generally OK booking flights and hotels, I had to spend a lot of time figuring out how to travel by train/bus along the northeastern US. It eventually got figured out, but it took me a couple of hours to do this.

So, what do you do? Do you handle it yourself? Do you use a travel agent? Or a service like Magic, Pana, etc?